


Road Trip

by Rae_Roberts



Series: Werewolves AU [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, No Smut, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Original Character(s), Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2018-12-23 04:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11981916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_Roberts/pseuds/Rae_Roberts
Summary: No sooner does Dean begin a new life in an alternate world full of werewolves, than the man he'd planned on sharing that life with ditches him.   There's just one thing Werewolf Sam didn't count on:  Dean Winchester ain't no ditchable prom date.Sequel to 'Bite'.Warnings:  Unlike the first installment, there's barely a hint of smut to be found, just plot-heavy world and relationship building... Upon which to base eventual shamelessly smutty sequels.





	1. Benny

“Breakfast for my girls,” Dean announced, breezing into the motel room with coffee and a box of donuts. 

Rachel Turner sat up amid the rumpled sheets, stretching her arms above her head and yawning theatrically. “It’s morning already?”

“ _Noooo_.” The only part of Jo Harvelle that was visible in the tangle of bedclothes was a swath of blonde hair. Even that disappeared when she pulled a pillow over her head. 

“Okay. Five more minutes, lazybones,” Rachel said fondly. Dressed in nothing but a t-shirt and panties, she padded over to the dinette table and selected a donut. “Yum. My sugar daddy,” she teased, batting her eyelashes at Dean. 

He hadn’t known Rufus Turner’s daughter back in his own world. Here in the fucked-up alternate reality he’d found himself in, she was a werewolf. So was this world’s Jo. And so was Dean, thanks to a bite from a rogue werewolf the very night he’d arrived in this universe. 

One effect of lycanthropy: a wolfishly keen sense of smell. Another: an enhanced sex drive. The room reeked of pheromones. Dean ignored the evidence of how the two women had spent their night, accustomed to it after almost a year among werewolves. It was just the way things were, no point in feeling awkward about it. If this world’s Werewolf Sam had been here, they sure as hell wouldn’t have spent last night playing Yahtzee--

Dean pushed the thought out of his mind, determined to hang on to his cheerful mood. 

Jo was finally out of bed, grumbling as she wriggled into a tight pair of low-rise jeans. Dean handed her a cup of coffee which she took with a wordless grunt of thanks. Not a morning person, though he’d seen her pack and vacate a motel in under a minute if the circumstances called for it. An alpha, born with the werewolf mutation, she was the leader of their little three-person pack. 

Back home, he’d been the experienced hunter, Jo the novice. In this world, their positions were reversed. Jo had been hunting down rogue werewolves since she was a teenager, and she was well versed in this world’s lore. Dean had learned the hard way that magic worked very differently here. He rarely had a problem deferring to the young blonde’s leadership. 

“Sam’s going to be making a speech in St. Louis,” he said now, plopping himself down on the sofa and clicking on the television. Sure enough, Sam was on the news. Dean closed his eyes for a moment when he saw the achingly familiar face. His brother, but for the amber eyes and sharp, prominent canines that marked him as a werewolf. But most definitely _not _his brother, not this world’s Sam… His mate. Or this Sam had been, briefly, before they’d broken the curse that had forced them together.__

__“Ugh. File footage.” Rachel sat down next to Dean. Barely five-foot-two and wide-hipped, if she’d been human she would have been plump. Being a werewolf, her figure was an impossibly proportioned hourglass, and the muscles hidden beneath her lush curves were supernaturally strong._ _

__They’d all seen the clips of Sam’s last big public appearance over and over, footage of him at the front of a march, standing head and shoulders above the rest of the protesters. The images still got a reaction from Dean. Hurt, anger and betrayal for the way his not-brother had run out on him, but also a fierce pride. The tall alpha was a natural-born leader. In just nine months he’d rallied tens of thousands of werewolves and their supporters across the country._ _

__“St. Louis has a small encampment,” Jo said. “Maybe one hundred regulars.”_ _

__“Those numbers will go up. People have been flocking to Sam’s speeches,” Rachel pointed out. “Maybe we can sneak in among the crowds--”_ _

__“I’m sick of hiding and sneaking. Sick of pretexts. They never work!” Jo practically growled her frustration. “I just want to wade in and start busting heads!”_ _

__Dean agreed with her. “Let’s hit the road...”_ _

__**...** _ _

__...Jo got her wish. The leggy alpha had taken down three guards all on her own before being dogpiled and subdued. Now she grinned at Rachel to let her mate know she was all right in spite of the ugly purple bruises marring her jawline and blackening her eyes. The marks would quickly fade; werewolves healed with supernatural speed._ _

__Dean went along passively, letting the guards on either side of him push him deeper into the encampment. He looked around curiously as they walked. St. Louis was typical of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’-style encampments that had sprung up all over the country since the start of the push for werewolf civil rights. They passed a first aid station, an outdoor kitchen with long tables where volunteers were ladling food out of industrial-sized cook pots, and a drum circle. There were the usual mix of werewolves, their human supporters, the simply curious treating the camp like a tourist attraction, and homeless people of both species drawn to the free meals and sympathetic crowd._ _

__The atmosphere was markedly tense, he noted, and it wasn’t just the security guards Jo had beaten down. They’d been to encampments all over the country, chasing after Sam, and usually the places had a sort of slapdash carnival atmosphere. Not here. Even the background rhythm of the dreadlocked drummers in their circle seemed subdued._ _

__Their escort took them to a large canvas tent with an awning, almost big enough to qualify as a pavilion. It reminded Dean of the medieval-looking tents used by LARPers. It took a few moments for the guards to get all three of them shuffled through the low-hanging tent flap and inside. When Dean looked up his eyes widened and he had to forcibly clench his teeth together to keep his jaw from dropping._ _

__He’d heard their escort speaking into walkie-talkies on the walk across the camp, heard the name Benny repeated, but didn’t think anything of it. It was a fairly common name, and besides, the Benny Lafitte he’d known back in his own world had been born sometime around the turn of the last century. Of all the people from back home, the vampire was the last person he’d expect to have a double here._ _

__And yet, here he was, very much alive. If anything, this world’s Benny was even taller and more solidly built than the one he’d escaped with from Purgatory. Golden eyes glinted and the cocky grin he gave them was accented with sharp fangs._ _

__“Welcome to St. Louis, Mr. Winchester.. Miz Harvelle.. Miz Turner,” he said, greeting each of them in turn, with a courtly little bow for the women._ _

__Of course he knew their names. All over the country, the camps had been forewarned about Sam Winchester's one-time packmates, not that it mattered, Dean thought bitterly. They'd been after Sam for the better part of a year and never even gotten close._ _

__Rachel growled and Jo jerked free of the security personnel guarding her the moment she heard the big werewolf’s Cajun drawl. Dean pushed his own guard away and flung out an arm to stop her from launching herself at Benny. “Hey. Hold up! You know this guy?”_ _

__The guards made a grab for them but Benny shook his head, making a small gesture with one hand, and they stepped back. Jo stood down and Dean let his arm drop back to his side._ _

__“No, but we know his type,” Rachel spat as Jo smoothed her shirt and adjusted her denim jacket with a sharp shrug of her shoulders, reining in her temper._ _

__“You think you know my type.” Benny looked completely relaxed but there was an edge to his voice. “Now I said y’all are welcome here, and I meant it, but as far as seein’ Sam Winchester, that ain’t gonna happen. ‘Least not up close and personal. But you can stay for the speech, just the same as anybody else, long as you don’t cause no more trouble, Jolie blon’,” he said, directing that last comment at Jo._ _

__“Stay here… Under guard?” she shot back._ _

__Benny spread his hands, an expansive gesture. “You can have the run of the place. No more under guard than anybody else. I take it you picked up on the mood out there?”_ _

__“We’re not idiots.” Jo was still bristling._ _

__“Yeah, we noticed,” Dean spoke up. “What’s going on? Local cops threatening to shut the camp down?” Just as they had with the Occupy movement, local governments had been fiercely opposed to werewolves camping out in their cities’ public parks. Many of the encampments had been bulldozed, the protesters’ tents and belongings hauled off in garbage trucks. Unlike Occupy Wall Street, however, the werewolves hadn’t given up. They’d rebuilt the makeshift communities and drawn even more followers to their cause._ _

__“Cops are always threatenin’ to shut it down,” Benny scoffed. He flashed that cocky grin again and Dean couldn’t help but feel a stirring in response. The man was obviously an alpha, with a power and charisma that practically demanded a reaction. “No, we got word that the Dark Moon Brotherhood is plannin' an attack.”_ _

__Jo scoffed right back. “Let them. Every time the Brotherhood shows itself, it only strengthens the cause.” She flashed a feral grin of her own. “And our side gets to beat the shit out of some dumb, deluded sons of bitches.”_ _

__It was true, Dean thought. The Dark Moon Brotherhood were rogues, fanatically devoted to wiping out humankind. They were responsible for much of the public’s poor perception of werewolves, but Sam and other activists across the country were starting to change all that. People were beginning to see that the average werewolf just wanted to live as normal a life as possible. Every time the Dark Moon Brotherhood attacked an encampment it was public relations gold for the werewolf rights movement._ _

__“We could use three more skilled defenders,” Benny said. “Word is, it’s gonna be a big showdown, Jake Talley himself leadin’ the charge.”_ _

__Dean had to suppress a growl. The name Jake Talley always got his hackles up. His own world’s version of the man had killed his brother, Sam. The Jake Talley of this world was the leader of the Brotherhood, and just as determined to kill this world’s Sam. Dean’s hands clenched into fists and he pressed his lips into a thin line to keep himself from baring his fangs. He should be at Sam’s side, keeping him safe. Instead he and Rachel and Jo had been stuck driving around the country, always one step behind, all because of Sam’s stubborn, misguided insistence on shielding his pack from the target painted between his own broad shoulders._ _

__“Yeah? Where’d you get your intel?” he forced himself to ask calmly. It made sense for the Brotherhood to choose St. Louis for a showdown. The encampment was a small one; if the Brotherhood massed forces here, the activists would be outnumbered. And what better time to attack than when Sam would be here? Still, rumors about the Dark Moon Brotherhood were always flying. The news could be exaggerated, or even completely false._ _

__“From Talley himself, or near enough,” Benny said. “He called Sam out for a duel, just like an old-time Creole gentleman. Talley picked the date and time, and Sam picked the location.”_ _

__“That’s crazy.” Jo shook her head. “Why would Sam choose St. Louis over a big, well-defended camp like New York City or Oakland?”_ _

__“Sam didn’t deign to share his reasonin’ with me,” Benny said evenly._ _

“You’re lying. Sam wouldn’t talk to you about any of this.” Dean could practically feel the heat of Rachel’s hostility. “Sam wouldn’t _deign_ to talk to you at all!” 

“While that may be true now, _chère_ , as of last week I was Sam’s head of security.” 


	2. Full Moon

“The bastard’s got to be lying!” Rachel’s whisper was almost a snarl. Dean had never seen the good-natured little werewolf so worked up. “He’s lying,” she repeated as they found a spot on the curb a little bit apart from the shifting crowds of activists. “Sam would never have a _Cajun_ as part of his inner circle.” 

“What’s so bad about Cajuns?” She’d spat the word out like a slur. Dean had been in this world long enough now to know a bit of its history; he remembered reading somewhere that this world’s Acadians had settled in Louisiana back before the Revolutionary War days. Like the Cajun people of his own world, they’d been kicked out of the French territories of Canada, though in this world it wasn’t simply because of politics. This world’s Cajuns were werewolves. 

“What’s so bad about them?” Jo arched an eyebrow. “Well for starters they’re sexist--”

“ _Racist_ ,” Rachel chimed in. 

“Monsters!” both women concluded.

“To a Cajun, women are nothing more than breeding stock,” Jo elaborated. “They treat their own women like slaves, call them bitches. And they’re almost as bad as the Brotherhood when it comes to kidnapping human women and forcibly turning them.” 

“They’re mercenaries,” Rachel continued the history lesson. “Slave owners all over the South hired them to track down anyone who tried to escape the plantations. After the Civil War, they helped enforce the Jim Crow laws. Cajuns have terrorized more black folks than the Ku Klux Klan could ever dream of,” she said bitterly. 

“Okay, I get it. Cajuns are evil bastards. But I knew Benny back in my world,” Dean argued, “and he was a decent guy. I’m not saying this Benny is the same,” he backtracked quickly, raising his hands in a placating gesture when it looked as if the rest of their little pack might just haul off and punch him. “Look, all I’m saying is that we should keep in mind it’s a possibility he’s one of the good guys.” 

“I don’t care if he’s a goddamn saint.” Jo sounded close to tears. “You don’t leave your pack for a bunch of strangers.” 

Dean really couldn’t argue with her on that point. He let the subject drop.

 

Flashback: 

“I’m just going to grab a quick shower,” Sam said casually. 

Dean stretched out across the double bed in the guest bedroom. “Take your time.” He stripped down and leaned back against the headboard, stroking his cock idly while Sam showered, anticipating a night of mind-blowing werewolf sex. He began to drowse off as the sound of running water continued from the adjoining bathroom, sliding down to sprawl across the bed. That was okay, Dean thought. Sam never had any trouble waking him up. 

Sunlight speared through the curtains when Dean finally did wake up the next morning. He dressed and padded down the stairs to find Jo Harvelle and an unfamiliar, petite black woman sitting in Bobby’s living room. “Hey. You seen Sam?” he asked them, glad to see this world’s Jo still alive and apparently mated to a hot werewolf chick, but beginning to wonder where his annoying, unpredictable not-brother had wound up now. Sam wasn’t in the kitchen visible through the archway. 

“Sam’s here? His car’s not parked outside...You Dean?” Jo asked, nudging an envelope on the coffee table with her foot. 

Frowning, Dean picked it up. His name was written across it in Sam’s tidy script. He opened it and read. 

_Dear Dean,_

_Sorry to duck out without talking to you but I didn’t want to argue. Now that the curse is lifted you can go ahead and live a normal life like you’ve always wanted, well, as normal as it gets for our kind anyway. Don’t worry about me, and don’t worry about the Dark Moon Brotherhood. They won’t be a threat for much longer. I’m going to make sure of that. Go on and live that apple-pie life. You deserve it._

_Love,  
Sam_

“Son of a bitch,” Dean erupted. Bobby walked into the room. Dean turned eyes on him that were already tinged with gold. “Bobby. I need to borrow a car.”

“What’s going on?” 

Wordlessly, Dean handed him the note. Jo stood and read over Bobby’s shoulder as he scanned the page. “Balls,” Bobby muttered. 

“What does he mean, ‘don’t worry about the Dark Moon Brotherhood’?” Jo scowled at Dean. “Where’s he gone?” She turned to face Bobby. “Full moon’s tonight. Why didn’t he tell any of us he was leaving?” 

“I don’t know where the hell he’s gone!” Dean glared back at her. “But I’m going after him.” 

“Tomorrow,” Karen Singer spoke up from the doorway, her voice soft but firm. “You can go after Sam tomorrow, after you’ve gotten through your first full moon.” 

Dean opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again, shoulders slumping as his anger dissolved into pain. His first full moon, and the man he’d thought he could build a new life with had left him to endure it alone. Doubt crept in. He’d thought the attraction was mutual, but maybe on Sam’s end it had been nothing more than the effects of the curse. Hell, it had been Dean’s fault they’d been cursed in the first place. Back home, he knew how to deal with demons, vampires, every type of monster and evil thing. Here in Sam’s world, he was a rookie. A liability. 

Jo’s voice interrupted the litany of self-criticism. “ _I’m_ going after him,” she seethed, “and when I find him, I’m going to kick his ass.”

Tough words, but Dean could tell by the way her voice cracked that she was hurting too. The woman Dean had guessed was Jo’s mate wrapped her arms around her, offering comfort. Her big golden eyes were full of sympathy as she looked over Jo’s shoulder at Dean.

“Sam’s heart is in the right place, but he doesn’t always think things through.” She smiled. “I’m Rachel. Don’t worry, Dean. Any friend of Sam’s is part of our pack. You won’t have to go through the transformation alone...” 

**...**

...In the end, it was Jo who walked him through it, ushering him into a low ceilinged, bunker-like building at the back of Singer’s Salvage. There was nothing in the windowless room she led Dean to except some built-in shelves and the sturdy bars that stretched from one wall to the other, making the back portion of the space into a cell. 

Anxiety spiked as soon as Jo shut the door behind them. Not his emotion, Dean reasoned, not really. He’d never been claustrophobic. Like the craving for bloody steak, this was the wolf inside him making its presence known. 

His senses were almost painfully acute. He could hear the movement of bodies even through the thick walls, pick out Bobby Singer’s now-familiar scent as he escorted another werewolf into his or her own room further down the narrow hall, each soft tread of their footfalls echoing like the beat of a drum. He could smell the damp earth beneath the concrete floor, distinguish Rachel’s scent clinging to Jo’s clothes. 

“All right,” Jo said briskly. “It’s actually really simple. Undress, lock ourselves in the cell, moon comes up, we transform. Try not to worry too much. People like to exaggerate how bad it hurts,” she confided. “It’ll be over in a few minutes. Then Bobby comes back and lets us out.” 

She took a flat cardboard box down from the shelf. A Scrabble game, Dean saw, bemused. Jo scattered the letter tiles on the floor just outside the bars of the cell. “It’s an extra precaution,” she explained. “Bobby asks a trivia question, and you use the tiles to reply. A wolf’s brain doesn’t process language the way a human brain does; you have to be in complete control of the wolf in order to spell out the answer.”

“What if I’m in control but I don’t know the answer?” There was a lot about this crazy, bass-ackwards world Dean still didn’t know. Even some of the sports teams had different names and colors. 

“Then I guess you’ll spend the night locked up, wishing you’d spent more time playing bar trivia,” Jo smirked. “Okay, noob, it’s about time.” 

Casually, she pulled her shirt off over her head. Dean followed her lead, undoing the buttons on his flannel shirt and shrugging it off. “What about the others? Rachel and Karen and… What’s-his-name?” As the afternoon had gone on, more werewolves had arrived at Singer’s Salvage. Already feeling the effects of the full moon, Dean hadn’t even tried to remember Karen’s cheerful introductions. 

“They’re all old hands at this, fully in control of their wolves. These cells are for full-moon virgins like you,” she snickered, earning a scoff from Dean. Jo went on, “And werewolves in rehab for bane, or under some sort of curse or spell, kids going through puberty… Basically anyone who might not be able to keep it together.” 

“So when you were a kid, you transformed at the roadhouse. With Ellen,” Dean hazarded. He took in Jo’s nudity with a sidelong glance as he wadded his clothes into a ball and set them on one of the shelves. She was a duplicate of the Jo Harvelle of his own world, with the same slender frame and pert breasts. Dean looked away. He’d lusted after Jo, then eventually grown to think of her as a sort of little sister. The guilt of her death still gave him a twinge upon encountering her double.

“How’d you know about my mom and the roadhouse? Oh, right, you’re Sam’s brother from a parallel universe or something. That’s got to be weird.”

“Sweetheart, you have no idea. You never met Sam’s brother?” he asked as he followed Jo into the cell, grateful this new topic of conversation was panning out. His wolf’s anxiety climbed as the cell door clanged shut and locked, and he was beginning to feel an ache deep in his bones as the time to transform drew near. 

“My parents knew Sam’s parents, but after my dad was killed, Mom fell out of touch. By the time Sam and I met, I guess Dean was away at law school.” Jo shrugged, managing to convey apology in the half-seen gesture, caught from the corner of Dean’s eye as he paced the narrow confines of the cell. “He didn’t talk about him much.” 

That was still one of the most bizarre aspects of this world, Dean thought, that his double had been the Winchester brother to defy their father and go off to college. “Yeah, I get the sense that this world’s Dean was kind of a jerk.” 

“And you’re telling me that you’re not?” 

He could hear the teasing grin in Jo’s voice, and turned back to face her. “I may be a jerk,” he chuckled, “but I’m a jerk with a GED and a knack for auto mechanics, not some lawyer in a fancy suit kind of jerk.”

Jo grimaced, and for a moment Dean thought she was going to argue, but then the growing discomfort in his joints and muscles twisted his own features. He let out an involuntary grunt of pain and resumed his pacing. 

“Dean.” Jo pressed her hand flat against his chest, stopping him. “It’s going to be fine. Just don’t try to fight it--” Her words of advice cut off in a guttural snarl as the bones in her face shifted, jaws elongating, forehead sloping back. As she pulled her hand away, he saw that each finger was sprouting a claw.

Dean dropped to his knees, staring in fascination tinged with horror as Jo’s body was torn apart from the inside and reassembled. He shut his eyes, stifling another pained groan. Watching her bones distort and shift and realign themselves only made the same process going on beneath his own skin hurt even worse. 

He’d been tortured in hell, Dean reminded himself. He could get through this with his dignity intact. The thought helped him choke back the whimpers of pure agony as his body transformed, but just when he thought he’d gotten through the worse of it he felt his _mind_ begin to shift. He’d thought his senses were acute before, but now his brain felt as if it might explode from the rush of sensory input. His nose picked up the scent of every field mouse in Bobby Singer’s extensive gardens, the scurry of their tiny footfalls distinct in his ears. He could hear the flurry of nighthawks’ and bats’ wings, track their progress across the unseen sky overhead by scent alone. 

He could hear their heartbeats, smell their blood. Language and reason fled before that heated red onslaught, leaving nothing but insatiable hunger, the savage urge to snap his jaws shut, to bite and gnaw and slake his thirst. The wolf hurled itself at the bars of its cage in a fury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heartfelt thanks to those who've read, subscribed, or left kudos! It's so nice to know people are willing to continue on with this story, even without the smut.


	3. Conjure

Present day, the St. Louis encampment:

Dean’s cell phone chimed with a text message. _He’s leaving the camp_ , Rachel reported. 

Benny Lafitte was the closest they’d gotten to Sam in months. Rachel, Dean, and Jo had been taking turns keeping watch on the Cajun all day. 

_On it_ , was Jo’s terse reply. A key advantage werewolves had when tailing someone: they didn’t have to keep within sight. Jo and Rachel would track Benny by scent, making it much less likely he’d notice he was being followed. Now Dean’s phone was lighting up with texts as they relayed street names as they tracked Benny’s progress through the city. 

Benny didn’t stay on foot, as evidenced by Rachel’s latest text. Dean could almost feel her frustration in the two words, _Lost him_. 

_He took a cab. Jefferson, heading north_. Jo had managed to get a visual. 

_On it_. Dean tucked the phone into his shirt pocket and pressed his foot down on the accelerator, sending his vehicle darting in and out of the left lane, passing slower-moving traffic. It was up to him, now. Reckless, he ran a red light, the car’s tires squealing in protest as he took a right turn at high speed. Moments like these, Dean wished he had his old Impala. He slowed down and breathed easier when he caught sight of the cab up ahead. 

“Okay, the cab just dropped him off on Florissant Avenue,” he told Rachel over the phone. “He’s walking east.”

“East? That’s College Hill. The cabbie probably refused to take him any farther. That’s one of the worst neighborhoods in St. Louis,” she said. 

Dean didn’t bother asking how she knew. Like his brother Sam back in his old world, Rachel was a whiz at research, with a memory for trivia and odd tidbits of lore. “What’s your ETA?” he demanded, impatient. Being the novice of the pack, not to mention an omega, was often hard for Dean to accept. Back in his own universe he’d been raised as a warrior, becoming a seasoned hunter by the age most kids were starting their first part-time jobs. He was used to charging ahead on his own, confident in his expertise. While most of his skills had transferred to this new world, he was still learning to manage and refine his werewolf abilities. Jo wouldn't appreciate him trying to track Benny on his own. 

“We’re about five minutes out,” Rachel said. 

“Well, hurry it up. We don’t want to lose his scent,” Dean groused, venting some of his frustration. He heard Rachel laugh as she ended the call. Jo wouldn’t lose the scent.

Sure enough, well after Dean and even Rachel had lost Benny’s trail in the confusion of automobile exhaust, overflowing trash cans, and other city smells, Jo kept walking ahead confidently. The neighborhood was a rough one, many of the buildings abandoned and boarded up or burnt out. Hard-eyed young men drove by slowly, staring at the trio, music blasting. Others watched from porches and alleyways, but none of the humans were foolish enough to take on three werewolves at once. 

“Private club. Members only.” Jo had led them to an industrial metal door at the back of a derelict building with shattered windows. The guard was a massive werewolf, as tall as Dean and twice as broad. “I might make an exception for shawty, there,” he smirked, tipping his chin toward Rachel. “The rest of you assholes, fuck off.”

“You’d do that for me? You’d let me in?” Rachel batted her eyelashes at the guard. 

“Not for free,” he warned, leering. “You’ll have to pay for the favor.” 

“Oh, I know just how to repay a big, strong alpha like you. Later, ‘assholes’,” Rachel tossed over her shoulder at Jo and Dean, sidling close to the guard and running her hand up one of his burly forearms. 

The werewolf’s biceps were thicker than Den’s thighs. Dean almost felt sorry for the guy as Rachel pressed up against him. She was so much smaller that he had to bend down to put his hand on her waist. The moment he did, Rachel’s foot lashed out and up in a brutal kick, right to the big bouncer’s crotch. He whimpered in pain and doubled over. That move brought his chin within Rachel’s reach. The petite omega slammed her fist into his lower jaw, throwing her entire body into the punch. “Who’s the asshole now?” she taunted as he went down.

“Good one, Rache.” Jo stepped over the guard and led the way down into the basement club. 

“Yeah, your dad would be proud,” Dean said. Rachel’s expression softened at the praise. She’d barely known her father. Like Jo’s father, he’d died when she was just a little girl, but his double had managed to live past sixty in Dean’s world. Dean had hunted with Rufus Turner, and had plenty of war stories to tell. One of the better things about being pulled into this crazy alternate reality, Dean thought, was being able to share those memories with Rachel. 

Two more tough-looking werewolves stepped out to block their entrance, putting an end to the moment, but a voice called out from behind the bar, “Let ‘em in.” 

The trio walked into the room, a long, narrow cellar with thick cement columns holding up the ceiling. The floor was uneven, paved with bricks, and there was a makeshift wooden bar built along one wall. Dean threaded his way through the mismatched tables and chairs to the booths lining the opposite wall. Benny Lafitte sat in the last booth, his back to the wall. There were only a few other werewolves in the place, talking quietly at the bar or sitting at solitary tables, hunched over their drinks. 

Jo and Rachel took seats at a table nearby while Dean slid into the booth. They’d decided ahead of time it would be best for Dean to approach Benny alone at first. The women’s palpable hostility toward the big Cajun alpha wouldn’t help. 

“I see you three ain’t completely incompetent,” Benny greeted him. 

Dean scoffed lightly, acknowledging that Benny had expected them to try and follow him. “We’re not, thanks.” Meanwhile, the alpha pushed a bottle of whiskey and a clean glass tumbler across the table to Dean, then raised his hand and signaled the barkeep to bring drinks to the others. “You’re not drinking?” Dean asked, noting there was just the one glass on the table. 

“That ain’t exactly sippin’ whiskey,” Benny chuckled. 

“More for me.” Dean shrugged. He poured and raised his glass in a mock toast. Benny was right. The cheap rotgut burned all the way down when Dean took his first swallow. 

“Sam told me some story ‘bout you bein’ his dead brother’s double from another world. How’s that work, exactly?” 

“I know it sounds crazy.” Dean wanted to hear more about Sam, but he knew Benny wouldn’t talk until he’d explained himself. “I was a hunter in my own world, too. I was after a demon when somehow we both got dragged into this world.”

“A demon.” Benny chuckled again. “I’m sorry, but that seems mighty implausible to me. Demons don’t exist outside of horror movies and Halloween costumes.”

“Most people in my world feel the same way about werewolves.” Dean smiled, showing his fangs. “And yet, here we are.” 

“Point taken.” Benny sat back and regarded him. 

Dean looked back over the rim of his glass. If not for the gleaming golden eyes, he thought, and the single pair of non-retractable fangs, Benny would be the exact double of the vampire he’d met in Purgatory. But there was something very different about this world’s Benjamin Lafitte: an aura of power, of sheer animal magnetism well beyond the vampire Benny’s own considerable charisma. Dean could feel his wolf reacting even as he played it cool,the feral, primitive beast inside responding to the Cajun alpha with instinctive submission. 

Damned omega wolf, he thought sourly. It was embarrassing to think that he, Dean Winchester, a veteran of countless hunts in his own world, a man who’d literally been to hell and back, would turn out to be a wimp of a werewolf. Humiliating. And damned inconvenient in a situation like this, dealing with an older, more experienced, and clearly more powerful hunter. With an effort, he kept his face blank, his gaze steady as Benny studied him.

“Your premise is that everyone in that demon-beleaguered world of y’all’s has a double here in this world?” Benny continued his questioning. 

“That’s right.” Dean tipped back the glass and drained it. He knew where this was going. 

“Then explain me.” Fangs glinted as Benny grinned his cocky grin. 

“I can’t,” Dean said honestly. “The Benny Lafitte I knew was a vampire, born more than a hundred years ago. I don’t know, man. All I can think is, you’re a descendant, you know, some kind of relative with an uncanny resemblance?” 

Benny nodded consideringly. “I have been told I take after my great-great-grandpa, the first Benjamin Lafitte.” The alpha sat up straight, slapping his hands down on the table for emphasis. “All right. Let’s talk about Sam.” 

Dean started his own line of questioning. “What’s so special about St. Louis?”

Benny cocked his head. “Special? Ain’t nothin’ special about it, no.”

“Why are you here?” Dean tried to rein in his impatience. “Sam sent you on ahead to set up security for him, didn't he?”

“No, Sam and I had a fallin’ out ‘bout a week ago. When I made it clear I was _strongly_ opposed to him meetin’ Jake Talley.”

Dean snorted. “And let me guess. He took off.” He felt a hint of the kinship he’d shared with the vampire version of Benny, back in Purgatory, back home. 

“Seems to be a habit of his,” Benny said dryly, “Take off runnin’ whenever it looks like he might not get his own way.” 

“Shut up.” Jo’s voice was a snarl. She was on her feet in an instant, chair pushed back with a scrape of metal on brick, hands balled into fists. “You don’t get to talk about Sam like that, _Cajun_.” Rachel rose, too, following her alpha’s lead, shooting Benny a look of pure venom. 

Dean groaned. The rest of his pack was making their loathing of Benny Lafitte unmistakable. Never mind that Jo had voiced the same complaint about Sam more than once herself. “Listen, Jo,” he said, his tone mild, in direct contrast to hers. He felt acutely conscious of Benny’s eyes on him, watching the interaction. Arguing could be interpreted as Dean challenging Jo’s leadership of the pack. He resisted the urge to groan out loud again. Jo hated Benny enough already without Dean insulting her in front of the big Cajun. But how to convince her to trust that he knew what he was doing?

“Salt!” he blurted.

“What?” Jo and Rachel chimed, as Benny cocked his head quizzically. 

“This is a salt situation,” Dean said, locking eyes with Jo, willing her to understand the obscure reference. She and Rachel had both laughed in disbelief when Dean had explained the supernatural quality of salt in his world. They’d cracked jokes about it for days afterward. Dean arched his brows at Jo. She just needed to accept that when it came to Benny, as when it came to salt, demons, and other aspects of his world, Dean was the expert. 

“Salt. Seriously?” Jo caught on, but her stance was still hostile.

“Please.” For once, Dean didn't try to quell his omega tendencies. The last thing he wanted to do was make his pack leader lose face in front of the Cajun. 

Jo blinked in surprise at his unusually submissive tone. “All right,” she said, her voice softening. “I’m listening.”

The tension didn’t break, but at least it was dialed back a notch or two. Benny half rose in his seat, waving his hand in a courtly, archaic gesture, offering Jo and Rachel seats beside him and Dean in the booth. Rachel snorted and shook her head, radiating hostility. Jo sidled closer, but stopped at the nearest table, cocking her hip to balance on the table edge, as if poised to flee. Or more likely, Dean thought, fight. “So Sam’s going to duel the leader of the Dark Moon Brotherhood," he said now that things were as calm as they were going to get. "And my guess is, St. Louis is a decoy.”

Benny had leaned back in his seat. He frowned. “The Brotherhood don’t seem to think so. I’ve had reports of members and known associates makin’ their way into the city.”

“The rank and file members and hangers-on,” Jo drawled, “but not Talley or his lieutenants, right, Dean?”

“That’s what I’m guessing. Jake Talley and Sam, this business between them is personal,” Dean said.

“Of course!” Rachel nodded her understanding. “Sam would do anything to keep innocent people out of harm’s way. If the two main combatants are somewhere else, St. Louis will be nothing but a skirmish.”

“Hmm,” Benny murmured, mulling it over. It didn’t take more than a second or two before he look back to Dean, his expression shrewd. “They could be plannin’ to meet anywhere, but I’m thinkin’ you got a notion as to where, based on events in your own world, with your version of Sam.”

Jo stood abruptly. “Good work, Dean. Let’s go.” 

Dean knew she’d caught on, based on her own knowledge of Sam and Jake Talley’s complicated past. Her guess wasn’t entirely correct, but they could clear that up later. Relieved, yet almost reluctant to leave Benny’s presence, he started to slide out of the booth. “Thanks, man. Good talk.”

“How you plannin’ on trackin’ Sam down?” Benny’s voice was casual, but something in his tone froze both Dean and Jo in place.

Dean stared blankly at the alpha, but Jo managed a touch of sarcasm as she replied, “We may not be Cajuns, but we have skills. We’ll find him. Come on, Dean.” She turned to leave, but once again, Benny’s words stopped her.

“Oh, yeah? Like you done so far? Tell me, Miz Harvelle, all these months you been followin’ Sam, you ever lay eyes on him, I mean besides the television? Ever catch so much as a whiff of his scent?”

The room suddenly seemed ten degrees warmer, and Dean looked up at Jo, eyes widening as he saw that she was actually blushing, her cheeks flushed pink under Benny’s challenging gaze.

“Just get to the point,” she snapped, glowering.

“The point is, even I can’t track him,” Benny said, and even across the width of the table Dean could feel the heat of his fury at that admission. “He’s gotten his hands on some sort of hoodoo. He could be standing right behind me, right now, and I wouldn’t be able to catch his scent.” 

“Hoo- uh, hoo- hoodoo?” Dean stopped his babbling with an effort, instinctively looking to the women for an explanation. He knew about hoodoo in his own world, but here? The term could mean something completely different.

“Conjure,” Rachel explained. “Magic handed down through the generations, from slaves who brought it over from Mother Africa. A skilled conjurer could hide Sam’s scent.” 

“But wouldn’t they need something of the tracker’s?” Jo asked.

“Yes. That’s what made the spell so dangerous to perform, back in the slavery days. It has to be something from the tracker’s own body, like a lock of hair.”

“Or blood.” Jo’s eyes met Dean’s. 

He managed a snort. How many times had he bitched at Sam for using his body as a chew toy? His not-brother’s playful ‘love nips’ had regularly drawn blood. “And you and Rachel?” Dean glanced back at Benny and regretted it. The Cajun was practically simmering, seething with the same helpless hurt and anger the rest of them had all felt since Sam had abandoned their small pack to campaign for werewolf rights on his own. 

Benny _cared_ for Sam. His expression might remain stoic, but his scent didn’t lie. Dean wondered just how close they’d become, out on the road, traveling the country together. The thought made his stomach twist with a mix of jealousy and pure, hot lust as a vivid image of Sam and Benny flashed across his mind’s eye. Two werewolf Adonises, their tall, perfectly muscled bodies locked together in a clinch, moving in passionate rhythm…

“Ow! Dammit, Jo!” Dean complained, caught off guard. She’d cuffed the side of his head, hard, snapping him out of the daydream. Dean realized he’d gone slack-jawed. Practically drooling. Damned omega wolf, turning him into a teenage girl, he berated himself, and shut his mouth with an audible click of teeth. 

“Sam would have been able to get DNA from any of us,” Jo said brusquely. “Hair from a comb. Hell, a trace of saliva from a used coffee cup would do it.” 

Dean realized she’d had a similar thought about Sam and the big Cajun alpha as lovers, and was determinedly denying it.

Benny was saying, “So none of us can track him, but Dean, here, has a lead on where this damned-fool duel is gonna go down. We just gotta make sure we get there in time to back Sam up.”

“There is no 'we'. We’ve got no reason to work with you,” Jo scoffed.

“No reason except we all want to help Sam, _chère_.” Benny’s voice was low, calm, but there was a dangerous undercurrent to the words, an alpha daring anyone in the pack to disagree. “You and I both know Jake Talley ain’t gonna fight fair.” He gestured again, indicating the empty spaces on either side of the booth. “Sam's gonna need all the help he can get, so please, ladies, sit down and let’s discuss this reasonable-like.”

Rachael literally squirmed, trapped between the conflicting demands of two alphas: her pack leader and mate, Jo, and the far more powerful Cajun. She let out a pleading, wordless whine of distress. Dean had to give the little omega props for remaining on her feet. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure he could stand right now, even if Jo had ordered it. 

“No. We don’t work with people like you. Dean, I get it that you were friends back in your own world, so I’ll give you boys five minutes to say your goodbyes.” The strain was obvious in Jo’s voice, but she stood squared off against Benny, defiant. Then she reached out and touched Dean’s shoulder, her warm, firm grip helping to break Benny’s hold over him. Dean looked up and met her eyes. “Five minutes. Then you meet us out front.” 

He nodded. 

Benny waited until they heard the door to the club close behind the two women before he said, “You got yourself a good pack leader, there.”

Jo hadn’t just given Dean a chance to speak to Benny privately. She’d spared his dignity by giving him time to collect himself and walk out of the bar on his own terms. “Yeah, I think so,” Dean said. He felt a swift, unexpected twinge of jealousy at the compliment, a longing for an older male’s approval like he hadn’t felt since his father. He gave himself a mental shake, rejecting the emotion. _Focus, dammit_. 

“The admiration ain’t exactly mutual,” Benny chuckled. “And that goes double for the lil’ one.”

“Well, from what I understand, your ancestors used to hunt her ancestors down like dogs,” Dean pointed out. 

“The fugitive slave patrols,” the Cajun acknowledged. “One of the least of my family’s sins.”

“As far as Rachel’s concerned, I’d say it’s the worst.”

“Then maybe she don’t know as much about Cajun folk as she lets on.” 

Benny’s eyes were intense. Dean felt lost in their smoky topaz depths, a chick flick expression he’d never dreamed could apply to him, but here he was, butterflies inhabiting his stomach, weak in the knees, unable to look away. 

Like hell, he told himself sternly. He’d faced down archangels. Dean grabbed the bottle, poured himself another two fingers of whiskey and turned the glass in his hand, watching the liquid catch the light, giving himself a moment to pull his scattered thoughts together. When he met Benny’s eyes again, the cocky facade he’d perfected long ago was firmly in place. “Do us both a favor and drop the Cajun boogeyman crap, okay? No matter what your great-great-grandfather or whatever did, that’s not you. Sam would never have let you close to him if that was who you are.” 

“You really believe people can change?” If anything, Benny’s stare was more piercing than ever. Dean met it boldly. 

“Yeah, Benny. I do. And I’ll convince the rest of the pack. But know this, if you’re going to work with us, you’re going to follow Jo’s lead. She’s the alpha on this job.”

Benny nodded assent. Then he leaned back and chuckled again as Dean tossed back the whiskey in one gulp. “You got balls, Dean. Don’t ever let anybody tell you different...”

**...**

“...You’ve got some balls, telling that bastard he could join our pack without any input from Rachel and me.” 

Jo glared at Dean. Next to her, Rachel bristled with indignation, eyes over-bright with unshed tears. Not from what she must view as his betrayal, Dean thought, or not only from that, but from the stress of the past hour. Acutely sensitive to her mate’s emotions, and just as affected by Benny’s intense charisma as Dean had been, the conflicting pull of the two alphas had taken its toll on her. Dean’s shoulders sagged, his own emotional fallout hitting him in a rush. “Come on, Jo, not now. We can talk about it later.”

“Oh, you can just bet we will."


	4. Scrabble

Flashback:

As his body finished transforming, Dean felt his _mind_ begin to shift. He’d thought his senses were acute before, but now his brain felt as if it might explode from the rush of sensory input. His nose picked up the scent of every field mouse in Bobby Singer’s extensive gardens, the scurry of their tiny footfalls distinct in his ears. He could hear the flurry of nighthawks’ and bats’ wings, track their progress across the unseen sky overhead by scent alone.

He could feel the miniature pulse of their heartbeats, imagine the distinct tastes of their blood on his tongue. Language and reason fled before that heated red onslaught, leaving nothing but insatiable hunger, the savage urge to snap his jaws shut, to bite and gnaw and slake his thirst. The wolf hurled itself at the bars of its cage in a fury. 

Those bars didn’t budge, but the creature that had once been Dean Winchester didn’t notice or care. It slammed into them again with mindless, brute force, heedless of the pain as the wolf’s body collided with solid, unyielding steel.

Then a low, rumbling growl distracted the creature. It turned, assessing its cellmate as much by scent as by sight. Female, her thick coat of fur pale as moonlight compared to its own pelt of timber-wolf gray, her stance challenging, but her lithe body a good sixty pounds lighter than its own heavily muscled bulk. Not that the wolf thought in anything like those human terms. The wolf simply sized up the female and dismissed her. She was not a threat. 

It drew back to the outer wall of the building, trying to gain the space to put some momentum behind its assault on the bars of the cell. Muscles bunched and the wolf sprang forward, only to be knocked off balance as the female bowled into it, her surprisingly well-muscled shoulder driving it to the floor. The female snapped her jaws closed on the scruff of the brute wolf’s neck, fangs sinking in deep enough to draw blood, and gave its head a skull-rattling shake.

Her scent assailed the creature’s nostrils, powerful and bearing a far different message than it had initially thought. She _was_ a threat, alpha to its omega. Its paws scrabbled on the concrete floor, seeking purchase, but for all its strength and bulk, the wolf was as clumsy as a pup. It fell back down in an ungainly heap.

Jo pushed Dean over onto his back with one paw, shifting the grip of her jaws to his bared throat, though this time her fangs barely grazed his skin, holding on with just enough pressure to let the bigger wolf know who was truly boss. *Dean. Come on, Dean, I’ve got you. It’s okay. I’ve got you.*

Dean let out a submissive whine, muscles relaxing against his will, his wolf’s instinctive reaction to Jo’s dominance display. He couldn’t process her words in his head; it was all meaningless sound and scattered images, but the heat of her body looming over his calmed him, her scent reassuring him.

*Come on, noob, get a grip. You can do this, Dean. Focus.* There was a tinge of impatience in the images now, Jo’s human face swimming into focus in his mind, her expression more exasperated than affectionate. That wasn’t good. Oh, no. Her disapproval was a bad thing. His wolf cringed and Dean whined again, more urgently this time, and struggled to do as he’d been told. 

*Um, Jo? How is it that you’re talking to me? I mean talking, like a-- a human? You’re really strong,* he added, squirming uncomfortably. 

*It’s telepathy, genius. And yeah, I’m totally badass, thanks for noticing.* 

This time the voice was intelligible, the words clear, accompanied by a mental image of Jo’s face, wearing an all too familiar look of amusement. Dean remembered wryly that back in his own world, Jo’s amusement had usually come at his expense. 

*New to this, remember?* he groused, the thought accompanied by a wolfish, yet very human-Dean-like huff of breath. He squirmed again. *Come on, you big furball. Let me up.*

Jo released her grip on his throat and stepped back, watchful, but there was a sparkle in those golden, canine eyes of hers that conveyed laughter. 

Just like his own world’s Jo. Not to mention _this_ Jo could probably kick his ass. _Awesome_ , Dean thought dryly, scrambling to his feet as the door on the other side of the low-ceilinged room opened and Bobby strolled in. 

“Heard a scuffle. Figured you could handle it,” he said to Jo. 

To Dean’s ears, the words came out slightly garbled. And damn, Bobby’s scent was delicious, like the extra-extra-rare steak he’d devoured for breakfast, but somehow twice as tantalizing. How had he not noticed before? _No_. Not his thoughts, Dean reminded himself quickly. Not his appetite. God, the last thing he wanted to do was munch on Bobby Singer! Not even if his wolf clearly thought of the man as an entree. 

*Um, I’m good to go, Bobby,* he thought, clumsily aiming the reassurance at the human.

*Humans can’t hear your thoughts, only other wolves. The Scrabble tiles, remember?* Jo was reaching a paw through the bars of the cell, expertly sliding the little wooden pieces within his reach.

“All right, Dean. We’ll go easy on you, since it’s your first time,” Bobby said jovially. “What year did Chevrolet launch the Corvette?”

The mental image of a vintage 1953 ‘Vette appeared in Dean’s mind, a gleaming white convertible with pristine red interior, perfect in every detail. *Too easy,* he boasted, but when he stepped closer to the bars to select the tiles, the collection of letters had him cocking his head, first to one side, then the other in the classic canine gesture of confusion.

*There’s no numbers!* He let out a snort of indignation. *What the hell, Jo? Bobby asked me a trick question!* Dean aimed a short, sharp bark in the human’s direction, making his displeasure clear to Bobby in the only way that he could.

*You have to spell it out, Dean. You really think Bobby would risk letting you run free if you weren’t fully in control of your wolf? On your very first full moon?*

*Yeah, about that, if he won’t let me out, that means you’re–*

*Stuck in here with you,* Jo concluded. She stalked toward Dean, locking her golden eyes on his. *Or I should say, you’re stuck in here with me. And if I don’t get to run because you can’t figure out a few scrabble tiles, you’re in for a long night of me kicking your dumb ass all around this cell.*

*All right, all right,* he groused mentally. *Give me a minute.* His paws felt oversized, clumsy, and the letters seemed to shift in and out of focus each time he tried to select one, clearly demonstrating the influence of the wolf, the canine mind that had no use for the written word. Was this tile an I or an L? That one, an F or an E? To his disgust, Dean found himself struggling with what, in human form, would have been a childishly easy task. *This must be what it’s like to have dis– um, dis– that thing where you can’t read.*

*Dyslexia.* Jo flopped down on the floor, head resting on her front paws, and let out an exaggerated yawn.

At last Dean managed to spell out the answer in an uneven line of tiles. He sat back on his haunches, mouth open and tongue lolling in the wolf version of a grin as he scoffed to Jo, *Easy question, my ass. That was like, thirty letters long.*

Jo didn’t roll her eyes as she brushed past him, eagerly slipping through the cell door before Bobby had had a chance to do more than crack it open, but something about her posture clearly conveyed the expression anyway. Dean didn’t care, more interested now in Bobby Singer, blocking his path out of the cell. He nudged his cold, damp nose into Bobby’s hand insistently and gave another sharp bark. 

“Yeah, yeah, ya big mutt, go on. Have fun. Be good.” Bobby gave Dean’s ears an affectionate rub before moving aside to let him follow Jo out into the freedom of the night. 

That freedom was intoxicating, full of scents, full of sounds, and all lit bright as noon with the brilliant silver light of the full moon. Dean’s steps faltered, drunk on the sheer variety of sensory input. He darted first one way and then another, nose to the ground to follow the trail of some small, burrowing rodent, then lifted skyward to track the path of a moth. So many smells! He lifted his leg to mark a particularly enticing one with a stream of urine. _Mine_!

*Oh my gosh, he’s adorable!* Rachel’s telepathic voice carried an unmistakable giggle as she padded over to nuzzle up against Jo. *He’s like a great big puppy!*

*Yeah, you wouldn’t think he was so cute if you’d just wasted, like, twenty minutes of your night watching him try and spell out five syllables,* Jo griped, but Dean noticed her scent was infused with a giddy warmth when the smaller, melanistic wolf leaned into her.

He mentally dragged himself away from marking every interesting scent. Dean trotted across Singer Salvage’s weedy, unkempt back lot to the two females, offering a deliberately casual *Hey, Rachel.* Sure, he was cute, he thought, but it was the hot, bad-boy kind of cute. Dean Winchester was no puppy! 

His attempt at cool was spoiled when he tripped over his own front paws, but he recovered quickly with a self-deprecating--and totally suave--chuckle. *Heh. Still getting used to four legs.*

Rachel’s wolf stood out stark against the deep gray of the woods beyond the lot, her dark fur gleaming like satin. Dean couldn’t help but move in closer, sniffing eagerly, wanting--no, _needing_ \--to fill his nostrils with every nuance of her scent.

With a possessive snarl, Jo stepped between Rachel and Dean, giving his ear a painful nip. 

*Ow! I was just saying hello,* he protested.

*Boy, that’s not how you say hello to a lady!* Rachel’s voice in his head was sharp, but her jaws gaped in the wolf version of a grin and there was a hint of a giggle behind the attempt at sternness. *We are wolves, not hound dogs. We have dignity,* she lectured. Rachel gave in to her giggles, then, and dropped into a bow, the classic canine invitation to play. 

*Last one up the hill is a shih tzu!*

*Oh, no you don’t!* Jo took off loping after her, easily overtaking her with her longer stride.

Dean lolloped along behind them, paws churning up chunks of dirt and bits of gravel. *Wait for me!*


	5. Closing In

Present day, interstate route 70 east:

“I’m sorry, I still don’t get why we’re heading to Michigan instead of South Dakota,” Rachel piped up from the back seat.

“Yeah,” Jo chimed in. “If we’re betting on Sam and Jake Talley making this personal, then Scenic, South Dakota is where it all went bad.”

Dean suppressed an involuntary shiver at the mention of the creepy ghost town where, in his world, the demon Azazel had gathered his ‘special children’ and forced them into a battle royale to determine the strongest. His world’s Jake Talley had been the last man standing. Dean could still remember every vivid detail, the horror of cradling Sam’s lifeless body in his arms, and then the desperate crossroads deal he’d made to get Sam back, a deal that had ended up with Dean dragged screaming down to hell.

“But you guys didn’t go there to fight,” he pointed out, shaking off the memories.

Jo scoffed, but Dean’s heightened senses could feel her tense, her body suddenly taut with a mix of anger and pain, and he knew she was reliving her own desolate memories of Scenic.

It was Rachel who filled in the details. “Jake was the leader of our pack, back then. He and Sam were--”

“Don’t say it,” Jo said roughly.

“...Close,” Rachel amended. “Really close,” she said, over Jo’s snort of disgust. “None of us realized how twisted that relationship was, how manipulative Jake was, until it was too late--” 

“Mom and I did, though,” Jo argued. “I was his best friend, before Jake came along. I should have tried harder to make Sam listen to me--” 

“I get it. Things went south,” Dean interrupted the narrative before Jo and Rachel could sink any further into anger and self-blame. He could feel the emotions positively rolling off the other two occupants of the car, taste the varied scents of the negative feelings on his tongue, acrid and bitter. 

They were all on edge, the full moon approaching fast. 

“The difference between Scenic, South Dakota in my world and yours is, in my world, that conflict ended, right there. More or less,” Dean added, glossing over Sam’s death, Dean’s deal with a crossroads demon, and Jake Talley’s opening of the gates of hell. Details, details. “The timeline’s all screwed up compared to my world, but if we’re looking for a showdown, we have to move forward, not back. South Dakota is old history,” Dean said decisively. “Detroit, that’s where Sam will meet up with Talley. It’s where Sam battled it out with Lucifer, in my world.” 

“Lucifer,” Rachel scoffed. “As in, the devil? Dean, your world is fucked up.”

“Don’t I know it, sweetheart.”

**…**

Night, a hotel just outside of Detroit:

One thing about being a werewolf on the night before the full moon, Dean thought, he didn’t have to wonder who’d just knocked at his door. “Hey, Rache. Come on in. You and Jo all right?” he asked. No point in pretending he hadn’t heard their raised voices from next door, though he’d turned up the volume on the TV to give them what privacy he could.

Rachel chuckled as she toed off her sneakers and curled up on the room’s ugly vinyl upholstered sofa. “We’re fine. Little difference of opinion, all settled now. Jo went out for a jog to burn off some steam.”

Retrieving two beers from the mini fridge, Dean sprawled next to Rachel, passing her a bottle and nudging an empty pizza box off the coffee table to make room for his feet. “Ugh, jogging.”

“I know, right? Jogging is the worst,” Rachel agreed with a grin.

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes, Dean enjoying the company more than he’d care to admit. Not that Jo and Rachel ever made him feel anything but welcome and fully included in their little pack, he thought, but at the end of the day, they were a couple. And he, well, with Sam shutting them all out, Dean was most emphatically single. It wasn’t the girls’ fault he sometimes felt like a third wheel. 

He blinked as Rachel shifted, pulling a joint out of her pocket and grinning at his surprised expression. “Got a light?”

“Um, sure.” He pulled out the trusty Zippo he always carried--old habits died hard, even if there didn’t seem to be any ghosts in this world to salt and burn--and lit the joint for her, nose wrinkling involuntarily at its scent. If that was marijuana, Dean thought, curious, it was clearly laced with something else. Or maybe marijuana in this crazy, bass-ackwards world smelled like meadows full of alpine flowers. He snorted at the mental image. “I thought you kids were all ‘just say no to drugs’,” Dean said.

“This isn’t bane, Dean. It’s not dangerous.” Rachel passed him the joint. “Go on. It’ll do you good,” she giggled when he hesitated.

Dean took a drag, inhaling deeply. He had to admit, the weird, flowery smoke wasn’t unpleasant.

“Now, it _will_ make you feel more, um, wolfey,” Rachel said after they’d passed the joint back and forth a few times.

“You don’t think you should have mentioned that before I started to get a buzz?”

She scoffed. “Not out-of-control-wolfey. Just… More in touch with your wolf. Besides, Puppy, you’ve never been out of control, not since your first full moon,” she added, reaching up to playfully tousle his hair.

Dean rolled his eyes at her nickname for him. “I was hoping you’d forgotten about that.”

Rachel laughed. “You wish! Never going to happen... Puppy.” She took one last drag, carefully setting the roach aside. When she turned back to Dean, her expression was suddenly serious. “I want to tell you about the pack, how things were when Jake Talley was our leader.”

“That’s a sore subject with Jo,” Dean pointed out.

She nodded. “Yeah, it is, but it’s your pack, too. You deserve to know our full history. Jo understands that.”

Dean stifled a chuckle, guessing that was the source of the argument that had raged next door earlier. “So lay it on me,” he said, gesturing expansively. Whatever had been in that joint, it had left him feeling more relaxed than he’d felt in months. And definitely more wolfey, though that seemed like a contradiction. ‘Relaxed’ wasn’t a term Dean would generally use to describe the wolf that prowled just under his skin. 

Inconveniently, that wolf of his had taken note of Rachel. Her fresh-scrubbed scent was positively intoxicating. Dean clamped down hard on a sudden urge to bury his face in the curve of her neck and drink it in. He forced himself to focus on her voice.

“...Like nothing anyone had ever imagined before,” Rachel was saying. “The idea that werewolves could do more than just survive, that our kind could actually thrive, live the way nature intended, but without harming any humans. It was so radical,” she said dreamily, and Dean could actually see the abandoned ghost town of Scenic, South Dakota in his mind’s eye, transformed into a makeshift home by Jake Talley’s pack of young, idealistic werewolves.

He saw Talley himself, handsome and impossibly tall, standing head and shoulders above nearly everyone else in the pack, except, of course, Sam. That mental image was a younger version of the alpha werewolf Dean had come to know so well, Sam’s shaggy hair cut shorter, with bangs that fell over his golden eyes, his tall frame still lanky, like the teenage Sam he remembered from his own world. The association made Dean’s breath catch in his throat, memories of his own rushing in. Rachel’s gentle touch on his hand drew him back to the present. 

*That’s your brother, from your own world?*

*You can see him, too?* It took a moment for Dean to realize they weren’t speaking out loud any more. He’d gotten used to the idea of communicating through telepathy during the full moon, wolf to wolf, but it had never happened to him in human form before.

*Like I said, the drug makes you more in tune with your wolf,* Rachel explained.

Dean felt his cheeks flush. He hoped that joint hadn’t kicked in for her until after he’d imagined exploring her scent, tasting it on every lush curve of her body-- *Son of a bitch.* 

*Aw, Puppy, you’re so cute when you blush.* 

The thought came accompanied by Rachel’s signature giggle, and with a flicker of something--or some _one_ , Dean thought, but the image was vague and faded away swiftly, as if she’d suppressed it. A mental picture of Jo replaced it, crystal clear: the confident hunter they both knew, but that image quickly morphed into Jo as she must have been in Scenic, Colorado. Like Sam and Jake Talley, in Rachel’s memories Jo was younger, barely out of her teens. Her face seemed set in a permanent scowl and she hovered on the periphery of every pack activity, sullen and standoffish, never fully included. 

*You two weren’t together back then,* Dean noted.

*Uh-uh. There was no love lost between me and Joanna Beth. She thought I was an air-headed little groupie, and I… Well, I guess you can see what I thought of her.*

Dean listened as Rachel reminisced about the pack Jake Talley had gathered around him, her telepathic voice painting vivid images in his mind. Those images weren’t quite as idyllic as her words alone would have made it all seem. Talley was charismatic and compelling, but there was a sinister side to the alpha, a need to dominate and control everyone and everything around him. And he didn’t just want to peacefully coexist with humans, Dean realized with a jolt.

*Wait, Jake Talley wanted to exterminate human beings even back when he was leading your pack?* he demanded, shocked. *You and Jo and Sam all had human parents! How the hell did he get you to go along with that?*

“It wasn’t as if he just came out and said, ‘Hey, let’s all go murder the humans,’ and the rest of us were like, ‘Okay, cool!’” Rachel spoke out loud, flustered, and the wave of embarrassment that washed over her practically smacked Dean in the face. 

A rush of images accompanied the words, and Dean’s eyes widened. *You had a thing going on with Jake Talley, too! You and Jake _and_ Sam?*

*No. I was Jake’s little omega side piece, the little groupie he’d go to whenever he’d had enough of arguing with Sam. And you want to know the worst part? He had me convinced that was my role in the pack, that I was really somebody,* Rachel thought bitterly. 

*Aw, Rache. That son of a bitch.* Dean literally growled at the thought of Talley taking advantage of her. *You deserved better! You’re awesome.*

*Thanks.* She flung her arms around him, hugging tight. 

“So Tally and Sam had this full-on Magneto, Professor X thing going on?” he asked when the moment had passed. 

Rachel looked blank for a second. “Oh. Marvel Comics.” She scoffed. Dean rolled his eyes. The DC vs. Marvel rivalry had raged between them almost since the day they’d met. “Yeah, sort of like that. Sam never agreed with any of it, no matter how Jake tried to justify it by how badly humans had hunted down and persecuted our kind over the centuries.”

The mild buzz of the drug was wearing off, Dean noted. “So the pack split up and Talley went off to form the Dark Moon Brotherhood.”

Rachel nodded unhappily. “Everything just fell apart.”

**…**

Detroit, Michigan:

“Turn left at the next intersection. Rachel says the parking garage should be half a block down on the right.” 

Following Jo’s directions, Dean pulled in, checking the rearview mirror to see Benny following in his own vehicle. As the small caravan drove forward, Rachel moved to lower the bar and re-hang the padlocked chain blocking entrance to the abandoned building she’d scouted for the pack’s full moon transformation.

It was probably the best possible choice, considering the sprawling city stretching for miles all around, Dean thought, even as his shoulders tensed, his wolf protesting their descent into the dark, claustrophobic confines of the lowest level of the underground parking area. He gave himself a mental shake, quelling the wolf. It beat transforming in some fleabag hotel. At least down here they’d have some room to move around.

Jo indicated a big metal toolbox in the trunk of their car with a jerk of her head as Benny ambled over to them. “You. Bring that,” she ordered. 

Dean arched his brows, not liking how Jo was lording her leadership of the pack over the big Cajun, but it was Benny himself who balked as he touched the box. “Silver? You really think you’re gonna chain me?”

Reaching a hand out, Dean could feel warmth radiating from what should have been cool metal. “What the hell, Jo?”

“I’m getting tired of explaining this to you, Dean.” It was Rachel who answered, her voice echoing in the dark as she strode down the ramp to meet them. Walking straight over to Dean, she reached up, planting both palms against his chest, emphasizing her next words with a shove. “We don’t trust him. He is _not_ pack.” Another shove. “We’re letting him work with us on this job, but he does not run free on the full moon.”

Dean braced himself as the petite omega thumped her hands against his chest, giving him a last, solid push that clearly demonstrated her more than human strength. “Jeez, Rache,” he protested, taken aback by her vehemence. Rachel was usually the most level-headed of their small pack, the peacemaker. 

“Don’t make me tell you again,” she snapped, anything but peaceful now.

“Well, boys? What’s it gonna be?” Jo had shifted into a fighting stance, Rachel swiftly moving to take her place beside her mate, squaring off against the two men.

But Benny was already taking the chains out of the trunk, lifting the heavy box as easily as if it was a child’s lunchbox. “Who am I to refuse the ladies?” he said dryly. “Anythin’ for your convenience, Miz Turner. Miz Harvelle,” he nodded to Jo, somehow managing to make the abbreviated gesture as courtly as a full bow. 

Jo grunted. “Let’s get settled. Not long, now.” Even three stories underground, the rapidly darkening sky out of sight, they could all feel the approach of moonrise. 

Benny was the first to strip off his clothes, positioning himself with his back against a thick, reinforced concrete pillar. 

Dean scoffed in disbelief as Jo opened the box of chains, which were packed in some sort of fragrant, dried herbs, their cloyingly sweet perfume overpowering. He coughed as the scent clung to the back of his throat. “What’s with the potpourri?”

“The chains are enchanted,” Jo said, an explanation that only bemused Dean further. 

“Where I come from, binding chains are engraved with devil’s traps or Enochian runes.”

“Dean, I can’t tell you how much I don’t care. Either help with these, or shut up and go get ready to transform,” Jo growled. 

He stepped back and began shrugging off his clothes, watching the others leash Benny to the pillar. With senses heightened, Dean could see clearly in spite of the darkness. The big Cajun stood tall, silent and stoic. “You really think that’s necessary?”

“Yes. You put me in charge of him, Dean. His people have a reputation. If I let a suspected rogue run free on the full moon, any human lives he took would be on me,” Jo explained with exaggerated patience.

Dean wanted to argue with Jo, to insist that Benny didn’t need restraining in the first place, but Benny cut him off. “It’s all right,” the alpha said calmly. He chuckled. “The things we do for Sam, huh?”

Jo and Rachel stepped away from Benny, quickly undressing in preparation for the full moon. Dean could feel the restless ache growing deep within his bones, familiar now after almost a year of the monthly transformations. He shut his eyes as first Rachel dropped to her knees and then Jo, unwilling to watch as their bodies contorted. Dean fell to his own hands and knees as his body started to shift, bones distorting beneath his skin, jaws elongating and a claw sprouting from each fingertip. 

The pain seemed to last an eternity, but in reality it wasn’t long before he’d made the shift. He raised his head to see Benny, transformed into a larger, more heavily muscled version of Dean’s own timberwolf-gray werewolf form. The magical chains had shifted along with him, adapting to the transformation, keeping him on a short leash wrapped securely around the pillar. Jo and Rachel were nowhere in sight, but Dean could hear the soft tread of their paws and catch their mingled scents and knew they’d retreated to another part of the building.

He padded over to the Cajun, coming to an abrupt stop when he felt the heat radiating from the silver, faint but foreboding. It was enough to halt his wolf in its tracks. Dean sat back on his haunches. *Does it hurt?* A whine of distress slipped from his throat at the thought. 

*Nah, not through all this thick fur,* Benny lied easily. *Go on,* he thought when Dean gave a mental scoff at the reassurance. *I don’t need you sittin’ there mopin’ at me all night. You go on, now.*

It was a clear command, and Dean’s wolf responded obediently. With an aggrieved, canine whuff, he loped off to join his pack.


	6. Contrition

The pack spent a restless night pacing the confines of the parking garage like caged animals. It was more than the unease of wolves cooped up underground, unable to run free, Dean thought. Somewhere out there in the same city was their alpha, the wolf who’d led their pack. The wolf who’d been his mate, no matter how briefly. And there was another wolf waiting out the full moon in Detroit, too. Another former alpha whose betrayal had hurt the pack far more than Sam’s abandonment. 

Tomorrow night, when werewolves were at their weakest, Sam would face that wolf. There was no doubt Jake Talley would take advantage of his rogue’s ability to change form at will. Dean was determined to find Sam before that happened. The pack would be there to back him up, whether Sam wanted it or not…

**...**

...In the end, it was the basic investigative skills Dean had learned as a hunter back in his own world that brought him to the squalid residential hotel Sam had chosen for his hideout. Dean had first tracked down Sam’s not-Baby. Sam wouldn’t park the ‘69 Mustang on the street, not in the sort of inner city neighborhood where their kind tended to be segregated. Once Dean located the Mustang in a secure parking garage, it was just a matter of checking every fleabag hotel in the area. 

Sam sat on a rickety wooden chair, in the midst of cleaning an already spotless pistol when Dean kicked open the door. Dean barked a laugh at Sam’s expression of shock as he whirled to face him. “Day after the full moon, Sammy,” he pointed out. “Wolf senses not so keen right now, are they?”

“Dean! What--? How--? No one even knows I’m in Detroit.” 

Dean scoffed as he propped the door closed behind him. “I was a hunter long before I was a werewolf, remember? I don’t need your scent to track you down.” It took less than two strides for him to cross the room. 

Sam rose to meet him. “Dean. I don’t want to fight--”

The big alpha easily blocked the vicious right Dean aimed at his jaw, but the hunter was faster and far stronger now than back when he’d been the newly-bitten, still-mostly-human werewolf Sam remembered. Dean followed up with his left fist, a haymaker that sent Sam sprawling across the sagging bed with a grunt of pain. 

“I’ve been chasing after you from one side of the country to the other for close to a year now,” Dean growled. “We are damn well going to fight!”

Sam scrambled off the bed, fists raised, his stance wary. Dean smirked. _Now_ Sam was taking him seriously. He felt a flare of satisfaction at the bruise rapidly purpling Sam’s temple. Dean charged, trying to press his initial advantage, smashing past Sam’s defense. 

Then Sam started to fight back, alpha instincts kicking in. Dean grunted as Sam’s fists pounded out a harsh rhythm on his ribs, knocking the wind out of him. Sam snarled as Dean slammed another haymaker into his face, the force of it swelling his right eye shut almost instantly. He punched Dean in the mouth, bloodying it, and scraping his own knuckles bloody on Dean’s sharp fangs. The force of it was enough to send Dean reeling back, shaking his head to try and clear it as stars circled and swam in his vision. 

“Had enough?” 

Dean scoffed, turning his head to spit blood onto the grimy floor. “What do you think?” 

Sam didn’t reply, just glared at Dean with his good eye as he closed in again, fists swinging. Dean fought back with abandon, letting out a low, angry snarl when one of Sam’s punches connected. His wolf was prowling just below his skin, as restless and unsettled as it had been the night before, and it felt good to use his fists to give the beast an outlet for its pain. 

Hell, it felt good on a purely human level, too. How many times had his reunions with his brother Sam back in his own universe involved fighting? This reunion with Werewolf Sam was similar, except in this world they were both supernatural creatures who could take a beating that would damned near kill an ordinary human. 

The pair circled one another, feinting, jabbing and blocking, each testing the other’s speed and strength until Sam got past Dean’s guard with a punch to the jaw that snapped his head back, sending him reeling, on the brink of losing consciousness. Sam took full advantage, grabbing the front of Dean’s shirt and slamming him up against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. The big alpha flung a muscular forearm across Dean’s throat and leaned his full weight into it, choking the breath out of him. “Had enough?” he demanded again.

Dean struggled for a few brief moments, but the brutal dominance display awakened his own omega instincts, and his muscles went slack, hands unclenching and dropping to hang loose at his sides. That didn’t mean he’d forgiven his not-brother, though. Not yet, not by a long shot. “You _ditched_ me,” he accused when Sam eased the pressure on his throat.

“Because this isn’t your fight,” Sam growled.

“That’s not for you to decide.”

Sam huffed out an exasperated sigh. “Dean, this isn’t even your world!”

“It is now. You’re my mate, Sam. Your fights are my fights!”

“Except you’re _not_ my mate. You never were. We were under a curse; that’s all it ever was.” 

Sam’s tone was flat, and for a sickening instant Dean wondered if it was true. Then he scoffed and rolled his hips up against the rock-hard erection straining at the fly of the big alpha’s jeans. “Uh-huh. Sure it was,” he drawled, sarcastic. Sam might have some spell concealing his scent, but Dean didn’t need any heightened werewolf senses to tell him Sam was still attracted to him. 

Sam blinked as if he’d just realized his body was still pressed tight against Dean’s, keeping him pinned to the wall. “Infatuation,” he said, stepping back. “I mean, you show up out of nowhere, looking just like the big brother I idolized as a kid...Yeah, I had a thing for you. I admit it, okay? I took advantage of you being cursed--”

“What? No you didn’t. You couldn’t help it, Sam; that curse affected you, too--” Dean started to argue, but Sam raised his voice, drowning out his objections.

“Look, the one good thing about you being stuck here is, even if this world is fucked up, it’s nowhere near as bad as your world. It’s like you’ve gotten a second chance. You can go live a normal life! That’s all I want for you, Dean! A nice, safe, normal life!”

Dean scoffed. “My life has never been normal. But you are right about one thing.” He closed the space between them in one stride, putting his hands firmly on Sam’s broad shoulders, pulling him in tight. “This world _is_ my second chance...With you, Sam. Who wants normal anyway?” He grinned, white teeth and fangs still outlined in vivid red blood from Sam’s punch, and raised a hand to caress Sam’s jaw, where the bruise he’d inflicted was slowly fading to a sickly yellow-green. “All I want is a crazy, fucked-up life...With _you_. And you know you want it too.”

Sam lowered his head, hands settling at Dean’s waist, the tension in his body easing. For a long moment it seemed he was about to give in, but then those big hands moved up to press flat against Dean’s chest. Sam pushed him away. “I can’t. It’s not just the Dark Moon Brotherhood anymore, not now that I’m involved with the werewolf rights movement. Hell, Dean, I’m _leading_ the movement. Do you have any idea how many people hate my guts because of that? Every scared, bigoted human in the USA. The FBI considers me a domestic terrorist, for god’s sake!” He ran a hand through his hair. “If word got out that I had a mate, it would put you in danger. I can’t have that hanging over my head, Dean, I just can’t.”

“Oh, the FBI, huh? That’s scary.” Dean’s voice dripped sarcasm. How many times had the Winchester brothers topped the FBI’s ‘most wanted’ list back home in his own world? But judging by his not-brother’s baffled bitch-face, the comparison was lost on this world’s Sam. “I don’t give a shit about the FBI, Sammy,” Dean clarified. “Is that your lame-ass excuse for running out on your pack, too?”

“My pack?” If anything, Sam looked even more confused, his unblackened eye going unfocused as he cocked his head. 

Dean realized he was listening to the growing commotion in the hallway outside. 

“Jus’ settle down, folks. Personal business, that’s all, nothin’ to see here,” they heard Benny Lafitte’s Cajun-accented baritone soothe. “We don’t none of us want no trouble.”

“Yeah, there’s only one deadbeat here whose ass I want to kick,” Jo Harvelle chimed in. An unfamiliar voice started to speak up and she snarled, “But hey, if you want an ass-kicking of your own, buddy, I’ll fit it into my schedule.” 

There were more unfamiliar voices and the sound of doors closing up and down the hall, and then Sam’s door slammed open and Jo, Rachel, and Benny all crowded in. Jo launched herself at Sam but stopped just short of punching him, scowling up at him with her fists clenched tight. “Of all the stupid, dumbass-- Goddammit, Sam! All these months, not even a damned text message?" Her voice cracked, revealing the pain behind the angry tirade. "How could you run out on us like that?”

“I’m sorry, Jo.” 

Sam’s voice broke on the words. Dean had never seen the alpha look so thoroughly miserable. 

“You ought to be.” Rachel stepped up and wrapped an arm around Jo’s waist. She laid her other hand on Sam’s arm, drawing him in. “You didn’t trust us to help you, Sam? Your own pack?”

“I didn’t want anyone I cared about involved. I was just trying to explain to Dean, they’ll target you, Rachel! You, Jo, even Bobby and Karen--”

“And we’re, what? Kids who can’t decide for ourselves if we want to take that risk?” Jo demanded. She reached up and smacked the back of Sam’s head hard enough to make the alpha wince.

“Ow. I’m sorry! I am. I just-- I knew you’d argue.” 

“So you jus’ took off runnin’.” Benny stood up straight from where he’d been leaning against the door frame and the cramped little room instantly seemed even smaller. 

“Benny? How--?” Sam’s eyes shifted between Benny, Rachel and Jo, confused. Clearly, he understood the animosity the women of the pack felt for the Cajun. Finally, he looked to Dean for an explanation. “Dean?” 

Dean decided it was time to step in and join the reunion. Sam looked lost. Positioning himself between Sam and Jo, he laid a hand on his not-little-brother’s shoulder. “A lot of people care about you, Sammy.” 

Benny moved closer, though Dean noticed Rachel and Jo didn’t widen the circle to let him in. He locked eyes with Sam over the heads of the couple and said, “You oughtta know it’d take more than firin’ me to make me quit on you, _cher_.”

“I don’t deserve it.” Sam’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Damn right you don’t, but you’re stuck with us anyway,” Jo said gruffly.

Sam’s eyes were wet as he nodded. Rachel was openly crying, and Dean could feel a tear running down his cheek. Even Benny and Jo were affected, their eyes glistening brightly. “All right, hand it over,” Dean said, disrupting the emotional moment. He held out a hand to Sam, snapping his fingers peremptorily when his big, dumb moose of a not-brother blinked in confusion.

“Hand what over?”

“Hex bag.” Dean snapped his fingers again. “There’s a big, sasquatch-shaped blank that ought to be filled with your scent, and we’re all sick of it.”

“Oh, the charm,” Jo said, catching on. “It’s a spell, not a hex-whatever,” she told Dean.

“So how do we reverse it?” Dean looked to Rachel. 

The petite omega frowned. “I’ve never heard of anyone wanting it reversed.”

“Mark him,” Benny said briskly.

“Mark me?” Sam looked apprehensive. 

“Mark him?" Dean said in unison with Sam. "You mean we have to pee on him?” He grimaced. 

Benny snorted. “Only if he took a urine sample from you.” 

“Mark him with whatever he took from us,” Rachel clarified, nodding understanding of Benny's cryptic solution. She stepped up to Sam. “So…”

Sam ducked his head. “Saliva,” he muttered.

Smirking, she rose up on tiptoes and licked his cheek with a loud slurp. An instant later, that look of amusement morphed into a tender smile. “Ah, there he is.” Rachel inhaled deeply, wrapping Sam up in a hug as she buried her nose in his shirt.

“My turn.” Jo slung an arm around Rachel’s shoulders and shuffled them both sideways until she’d taken her mate’s place in front of Sam.

“Strand of hair.” Sam still looked apprehensive. With good reason, Dean thought, snickering. Jo gripped a fistful of his hair roughly and yanked his head down to her level. Forehead to forehead, she knuckled a handful of her blonde hair into his skull.

“Ow,” Sam complained, but smiled when Jo beamed up at him, nostrils flaring as she inhaled his scent. Then that worried look creased his forehead again. “Do we have to finish this right now?”

“Oh, hell yes, we do.” Jo’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”

“I’d just appreciate a little privacy--” Sam’s voice was barely audible.

“Seriously?” Jo rolled her eyes and Dean was amused to see Sam’s cheeks blush pink. “Come on, Rache, time to go on a beer and snacks run.”

“Ugh. Boys are gross.” Shaking her head in mock disgust, Rachel hurried out the door with Jo. 

 

Benny chuckled as the women fled the room. “Your turn, Dean,” he said when the door had slammed shut behind them, gesturing him toward Sam with a wave of his hand. 

Dean didn’t have to be told. He stepped up to Sam eagerly, eyebrows arched in inquiry, although he already suspected what Sam had taken from him as a spell component. 

Sure enough, “Blood,” Sam murmured, golden eyes widening in shock as Dean grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled his head down for a kiss. 

Any doubt that his not-brother still felt a powerful attraction for him was banished when Sam wrapped him up in a crushing embrace, literally lifting Dean’s feet off the floor. Dean tried, but couldn’t quite stop the low, shuddering moan that tore from his throat at the manhandling. Sam inhaled deeply, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along Dean’s jaw and down his neck, desperately drinking in his scent like a drowning man gulping for air. 

“No fair,” Dean growled, fingers threading roughly through Sam’s hair. It was his moose of a not-baby-brother’s own damn fault he’d been missing Dean. And there was still that maddening blank nothingness when Dean inhaled, the conjure still in effect until he marked Sam with his blood. Dean pulled Sam back to his mouth, the growl still rumbling in his chest deepening when Sam didn’t catch on to what he wanted. 

Sam got the hint when Dean bit into his lower lip. He bit back, hard. Dean rasped out a sound that was half laugh, half groan of sheer relief as Sam’s familiar scent washed over him. He worked his bloodied lips over Sam’s jaw, reveling in the rasp of his stubble, nuzzling his face into Sam’s neck as the alpha’s muscular arms held him tight. All the pain and anger of betrayal melted away. All the anxiety in anticipation of Sam’s duel with Jake Talley receded. Nothing existed outside the circle of his mate’s warm, secure embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, can anyone guess what Sam might have gotten from Benny? It'll have to be posted as a separate work because I labeled this one "No Smut". I swear, I didn't think there was going to be any smut in this story. I'll post a little PWP tangent this weekend. As always, thank you for reading, and thanks for the kudos, bookmarks, and comments!


	7. Rules of Engagement

“It’s time,” Jo said decisively, rising to her feet. 

Sam looked up at her, confused. “Time for what?”

“To head out. You’ve got a duel to fight, remember?”

“At sunset,” Sam said. “I haven’t even texted the exact location to Jake yet.”

“And you won’t, not until we’ve checked the place out,” Jo told him. “I’m not giving the Dark Moon Brotherhood the advantage of getting there first.” 

Sam stood up and faced Jo. Dean could tell by the stubborn set of his jaw that he was still set on handling the fight with Talley his way. “Jake and I agreed to fight one on one. No weapons and no others involved.”

“That’s just stupid and you know it. He’s not going to fight fair. He’ll have the most loyal members of his pack with him, Sam, you can bet on it. You’re going to need your pack there to back you up,” Jo said evenly. It was clear she was keeping a tight rein on her temper. 

Sam shrugged. “How can our side claim the moral high ground if both of us cheat?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that our side doesn’t murder humans tips the scales just a little in our favor?” 

“You’re wastin’ your time tryin’ to reason with him,” Benny broke in. “Sam’s dead set on becomin’ a martyr.” 

“You all act as if I’ve never been in a fight,” Sam said dryly. “Who says Jake’s going to win?”

“Common sense,” Benny drawled, earning raised eyebrows from Jo. 

“Which you lack if you think you can go up against a rogue, the night after a full moon,” she growled at Sam. Looking back over at Benny, Jo muttered, “I can’t believe I’m agreeing with you.” 

Dean hadn’t said anything since Jo had made her announcement. “What’s the payoff, Sammy?” he asked now. 

“Payoff? I don’t understand.” 

“You’ve got thousands of werewolves out in the streets, sleeping in tents, because you promised to fight for their rights. They’re counting on you. You know they are, just like you know the odds of you winning this fight; you’re not stupid. So what’s the payoff when Jake Talley kills you?”

Sam shrugged again, as if the answer was obvious, and Dean felt his stomach drop. “I’m more use to the werewolf rights movement as a martyr anyway,” he said simply.

“Goddammit, Sam!” Dean had suspected as much--after all, in this world, Sam had been the Winchester brother left behind while the other went off to college--but to hear the self-loathing in Sam’s matter-of-fact acceptance of his impending death horrified him all the same.

Benny was growling wordlessly as Jo let loose a fluent string of curses, the two alphas’ emotions taking up far too much space in the too-small room, but it was Rachel who stunned them all to silence. 

“The Cajun’s right. There’s no use arguing with him. So come on, let’s get this over with.”

“What?” Dean and Jo chorused, gaping at her.

Sam said, “Um, Rachel, you know reverse psychology doesn’t really work, right?” 

“You’re saying you’re okay with Sam just letting Talley kill him?” Dean demanded over Sam’s quip, his temper flaring. 

Rachel scoffed. “Of course not. But if you’d just think it through, you’d know that Jake doesn’t stand a chance against Sam.”

“How so?” Benny looked skeptical. “No offense to Sam, but the night after the full moon, he’s at his weakest, ‘s why Talley chose tonight. Bein’ a rogue, Talley ain’t affected by the moon cycle. He’s gonna transform into his wolf and rip our boy into lil’ pieces.”

“You don’t know Jake Talley. Not like I do. First of all, he _will_ bring his pack with him. The man practically requires an audience.” Looking over at Jo, Rachel went on, “And that huge ego of his guarantees that he won’t transform...Not until Sam starts kicking his ass.”

“We can’t count on him playing by the rules,” Jo frowned.

“He doesn’t care about the rules,” Rachel said, “but he does want to prove he can beat Sam in a fight. Man to man. Using his wolf would be too easy. I’m telling you, Jake’s pride won’t allow it.”

Sam was shaking his head even as Jo nodded agreement. “I wanted to keep all of you out of this fight! If Jake brings his pack--”

Jo cut him off. “We’ll kick their asses.”

“Yeah, they don’t stand a chance,” Rachel chimed in. “Against you, Sam? And Jo and Dean?”

Dean couldn’t help but feel a flush of pride at being counted among the alphas when it came to fighting. “Don’t forget Benny,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, Benny.” Rachel looked the big Cajun up and down. “Just try not to get in the way, okay?”

Benny scoffed. “And what about you, _chère_?”

“Watch me, Cajun,” she smirked. “Watch and learn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it seemed like an abrupt shift between the last chapter and this one, yeah, it was. It ended up smutty. First chapter below:
> 
> [**Acts Of Contrition**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12116721) (3568 words) by [**Rae_Roberts**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_Roberts)  
>  Chapters: 1/2  
> Fandom: [Supernatural](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Supernatural)  
> Rating: Explicit  
> Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply  
> Relationships: Benny Lafitte/Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester  
> Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Benny Lafitte  
> Additional Tags: Threesome - M/M/M, Scent Marking, Come Marking, Hand Jobs, Oral Sex, Rough Oral Sex, Orgasm Denial, Dominance, Submission, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Male Slash, Bottom Dean, Bottom Sam, Top Benny Lafitte, Bottom Dean Winchester/Top Sam Winchester  
> Series: Part 4 of [Werewolves AU](http://archiveofourown.org/series/802077)  
> Summary:
> 
> As if Sam running out on him wasn't bad enough, it turns out Dean's wayward not-brother ran out on Benny, too. With Sam's duel with Jake Talley looming, the last thing Dean wants is to deal with his emotions. Not to mention, dealing with two disgruntled alphas and THEIR emotions? Son of a bitch! 
> 
> A two-chapter detour from 'Road Trip', taking place between chapter 6 and chapter 7. Absolutely shameless, utterly gratuitous smut.


	8. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: character death, violence, pregnant character, harm to a pregnant character. I don't consider what I've written to be particularly graphic, but your level of tolerance may not be as high as mine. Please proceed with caution if you might be upset by any of these potential triggers.

Sam had picked out an old church hall as the location for his duel with Jake Talley. The abandoned building wasn’t much more than a shell of brick and mortar. Jo nodded her approval of the gym, a dual purpose room that had once been used as both a basketball court and an auditorium. The derelict space stood two stories tall with a balcony at one end and a raised stage at the other. “This is good. There’s room to fight, but it’s still small enough there’s a chance of Sam stopping Jake from changing into his wolf form.”

“It’d be even better if we was t’ block off them doors at ground level,” Benny said diffidently. “Put them silver chains to good use.”

“Restrict entry,” Jo said slowly. She nodded again. “We’ll do that, then you can text Jake that you’re ready to kick some rogue ass, Sam.”

Sunset painted the dusty floor of the gym with bands of warm, golden light from the high windows as the pack gathered on the balcony. Dean stood next to Sam, shoulder to shoulder, with Jo flanking Sam on the other side. Sam was quiet. Dean didn’t need any heightened senses to understand why. His mate had withdrawn inside himself, mentally preparing for a fight to the death. 

Dean held a pistol loaded with silver bullets. As the best shot in their small pack, Jo had put him on sniper duty over Sam’s inevitable and futile objections. Any werewolf able to transform at will was a rogue--a confirmed killer--and could be shot on sight. The weapon might not deter Jake Talley from changing into his wolf form, but it might keep the rest of the Brotherhood in check.

Standing between Rachel and Sam, Jo was anything but quiet. The blonde alpha was keyed up, her slim body practically humming with pent-up energy. “Try and get inside his reach, Sam,” she advised. A few moments later, Jo spoke up again, “Don’t let him get his hands on you if you can help it--”

“I don’t need lessons in how to fight, Jo,” Sam cut her off.

“I’m just trying to--”

“Incomin’,” Benny said softly, casually distracting Jo. “That Talley’s scent? Or we dealin’ with a whole ‘nother pack come wanderin’ through?” he asked rhetorically.

Jo’s expression was intent as she scented the air. “You’re kidding me. It’s too soon after the full moon. I can’t smell anything but the dust in this dump.” She scowled.

“You can.” Benny smirked down at her, cranking the heat of Jo’s scowl up several notches. “Turn that anger off’a me, _chère_ , and feed it to your wolf.”

Still frowning, Jo inhaled deeply through her nose. “It’s him,” she reported after a few seconds. “Ugh, and he’s got Ava with him,” she said with obvious distaste.

“I count seven,” Benny said.

Dean could feel Rachel’s concentration from six feet away. “Jake, Ava, Andy and his brother, Lily,” she said slowly, naming each as she caught their scent. “II don’t recognize the other two.”

“Me neither,” Jo murmured. “Sam?”

Sam shook his head. 

By now they could all hear the Dark Moon Brotherhood’s footfalls outside the building. A door handle rattled in the distance. Dean and Benny shared a grin as muffled cursing indicated the pack of rogues had discovered it wasn’t just chained from the inside, but chained with enchanted silver.

A minute later, a werewolf Dean recognized as Andy Gallagher slipped through the stage door. He’d expected to see at least some of the other ‘Special Children’ from his own universe, but Dean still felt an unpleasant jolt at the sight of Andy. It was hard to imagine the affable stoner as a murderous rogue werewolf, yet here he was. 

Andy’s twin brother Ansem, a waifish blonde Dean assumed must be Lily, and two other werewolves moved into view. Last in Jake Talley’s entourage came Ava Wilson, and Dean felt a pang of regret. He and his brother Sam had tried and failed to help their world’s Ava. Dean shook off the memory. This world’s Ava didn’t have the excuse of a yellow-eyed demon meddling in her life. She’d joined the Dark Moon Brotherhood, gone rogue, and murdered innocent humans. She’d made her choice all on her own. 

“The blonde one’s in the family way,” Benny murmured, his voice pitched too low to be heard beyond the balcony where they stood. 

“That’s Lily,” Rachel supplied, her own voice barely audible. 

“She’s preggers? Jake must know. Why the hell would he bring her along?” Jo’s stage whisper was anything but subtle.

The Brotherhood had ranged themselves across the stage. Now Jake Talley himself strode out of the gathering shadows and took his place at center stage. Dean could barely suppress a growl at seeing the double of the man who’d killed his brother. Talley’s stance was confident to the point of arrogance, feet wide apart, head thrown back as he looked up at them, golden eyes skimming over the pack with indifference until they lighted on Sam. Jo had chosen the balcony to place Sam on the higher ground, forcing his opponent to look up at him, but Jake acted as if the stage was his by right, the height difference meaningless. 

Dean could feel the alpha’s commanding presence from across the long room, an aura of power and charisma that the Jake Talley of his own world had never possessed. As a Special Child, Jake had never been anything but a pawn. As an alpha werewolf, this world’s Talley had raised an army and terrorized an entire country. 

“Sam Winchester,” Talley greeted Sam, projecting his voice effortlessly across the auditorium. “It’s been a long time.” He paused for Sam to answer, but the big alpha didn’t respond. Jake raised one arm, pointing an accusing finger at Dean and his weapon. “Changing the rules already, I see.”

“No, you’re the one that broke all the rules,” Jo said. 

“I came unarmed!” He spread his arms wide, smirking, every facial expression and gesture exaggerated, theatrical, literally playing to the balcony.

“Fangs and claws count as weapons,” Jo pointed out.

“Keep a close eye on that Lily girl,” Benny murmured to Dean while Jake’s attention was on Jo. “Anythin’ strange starts happenin’ with her, take her out.”

“What do you mean by strange?” Dean said.

At the same moment Rachel chimed in with a shocked whisper, “ _Kill her?_ ” The petite omega sidled closer to take part in the hushed discussion. 

“Somethin’ off about her. Somethin’ evil.” Benny’s jaw was set in a hard line, his body radiating a tension that had nothing to do with the impending fight. 

“What? Is this some Cajun thing? She’s pregnant! We’re not shooting a pregnant woman, even if she is a rogue!”

“Right now I’m seein’ her as the major threat,” Benny argued. “Can’t you smell it on her? Somethin’ rotten--”

“Guys? Not the best time for discussion,” Sam said. 

Dean turned his attention back to the stage and saw Jake Talley listening, head cocked. The Dark Moon Brotherhood’s alpha smirked as all eyes returned to him. “‘Fangs and claws count as weapons’,” he mocked in falsetto. Talley scoffed. “Really, Sam? You let that mouthy little bitch speak for you?”

Jo snarled, and Sam’s voice was a deep, dangerous growl as he said, “My _alpha_ speaks for all of us. And you will show respect.”

“Tough talk--” but Talley’s taunt was cut off as Sam burst into motion. 

One long stride carried him to the crumbling edge of the balcony. Sam stepped off that edge as casually as he’d step from the curb to the street. Landing lightly on the floor, he strode to the center of the basketball court. “Let’s finish this, Jake...If you’re done being a mouthy little bitch.”

Dean stifled a laugh. _You tell him, Sammy._ He could practically hear the rogue alpha’s jaw clench as Sam stole his big entrance onto the battleground. 

Jake tutted. “Oh, Sam. How quickly you forget, you were always my little bitch.” He gestured behind him and Lily stepped up to join him. Taking her hand, Talley led her to the edge of the stage.

“Shoot her!” Benny growled as the pair jumped off.

Dean raised the pistol, took aim, and fired in one smooth, practiced motion, acting more on instinct than conscious thought.

“Dean, no!” Rachel cried and grabbed for his arm, but it was too late. 

It was all too late, Dean realized with horror. Jake turned as he stepped off the stage, swooping Lily up in his arms. For an instant, it looked like a dance move. Lily’s long blonde hair brushed the floor as Jake dipped her, bending over her as he arched her body back. Then he dropped her and she crumpled, blood spurting from the deep slash across her neck, pooling beneath her head and shoulders. There was a bright glint in the fading twilight, a long moment when time seemed to slow to a crawl as that silvery light shimmered and spread out from the dying woman’s body. 

Dean’s bullet ricocheted with a metallic _ping_ and shattered a window high up on the wall. He blurted a curse as the magic spread out across the court, walling Sam and Jake in behind an impenetrable barrier. 

“Blood magic,” Benny snarled. 

Jo hurled herself off the balcony, only to hit the barrier in midair and fall back onto the floor, out of sight below the balcony overhang. There was a flurry of noise, Jo cursing and pounding her fists against the wall of magic in futile rage. 

“How do we stop it?” 

“We can’t,” Benny said, resigned. “That wall’s up until her life blood stops flowin’.”


	9. Duel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: violence, character death(s). I don't consider my descriptions to be particularly vivid or graphic, but your mileage may vary. Please proceed with caution.

The two rival packs could only watch as Sam and Jake Talley closed in on one another. Sam had drawn a silver-bladed knife almost as soon as Jake had revealed his own weapon, and now the two alphas circled, each looking for an opening. They appeared evenly matched, both tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, but those looks were deceiving. As Talley had planned, the moon phase put Sam at a disadvantage. 

Sam darted inside Jake’s guard and slashed at his face, but Jake blocked the strike easily. He punched Sam in the jaw, sending him flying a good twenty feet. The knife fell from Sam’s grip with a clatter. “ _Ugh_.” Sam struggled to rise, but could barely lift his head, stunned by the force of the blow. 

“Sam! Get up!” Jo had moved to the left side of the court and was pacing in the narrow space between the outer wall of the building and the magic barrier, looking incongruously like a basketball coach shouting encouragement to her team. 

Jake stalked across the court with a predator’s deadly grace, staring at Sam with avid eyes as Sam watched his approach. As he came within reach, Jake lashed out with his right foot, but Sam wasn’t as helpless as he looked. He kicked up with his left foot, striking the rogue in the inner thigh, then drew his leg back and kicked him in the gut. 

Jake doubled over with a sharp exhale, the wind knocked out of him. Sam arched his back and jumped to his feet. A blur of motion from the stage drew Dean’s attention away from the two. He ran across to the left side of the balcony to intercept it. It was Ava Wilson, he saw as he aimed his gun. Her face was already more wolf than human as she charged at Jo. “Jo!” Dean yelled, but she was already moving through the narrow space at the side of the court, straight at Ava. He couldn’t get off a shot with Jo in the line of fire. 

Jo drew a knife as she ran. Dean’s jaw dropped at her ferocity as she attacked, screaming in wordless fury as she stabbed at the rogue. Ava was still transforming, her body contorting and clothing ripping to shreds, an inhuman howl tearing from her throat as Jo buried her knife to the hilt in her ribs and gave it a vicious twist. 

Ava kicked with her hind legs, her claws tearing deep, parallel wounds down the length of Jo’s thigh. The wolf snapped her jaws shut on Jo’s left arm, but Jo still had the dagger in her right hand, and the wounds she was inflicting with the silver blade would heal slowly, if at all. Blood seemed to hang in mid air, a smear of gore where Jo had shoved the werewolf up against the invisible magic barrier. The wolf fell, turning back into human form as Ava died. 

Dean had already turned his attention back to the fight between Sam and Jake Talley. They were both back on their feet and circling one another warily. The rogue alpha moved with superhuman speed, too fast for Dean to see more than a blur, but there was a sickening crack of breaking bone and Sam cried out in pain. Sam’s body kept moving, the momentum of Jake’s attack sending him staggering in a half circle. Jake followed up with a brutal kidney punch that drove Sam to his knees. 

“Sam!” Dean shouted, but his not-brother jumped back to his feet faster than Dean had imagined possible. Whirling to face Jake, Sam held his right arm across his body. It was clear the rogue had injured it badly. 

Talley moved in, intent on pressing his advantage, but Sam slammed him up against the magic barrier. Jake’s face flattened against the invisible wall like a dog run headlong into a patio door. Sam stepped back just far enough to give himself room to drive his knee into Jake’s ribs, one-two-three times, lifting him off his feet each time. 

Jake turned, right fist cocked back, ready to punch, but he never got the chance. Sam’s arm was useless, cradled awkwardly against his stomach, but his legs worked just fine. He kicked Jake in the solar plexus, sending him flying. The rogue alpha lay sprawled out on his back on the dusty floor, stunned. 

Sam walked past him, retrieved his knife, and dropped to one knee beside Lily where she lay unmoving in a broad puddle of her own blood. Sam encircled her wrist with the fingers of his good hand, checking for a pulse. Dean could see his forehead wrinkle in concentration; she must be close to death. As if echoing his thought, the barrier shimmered one last time and dropped.

Dean took a running leap off the balcony. Plaster fell from the walls with a shower of white dust as members of both packs jumped down onto the basketball court floor. Sam sprang to his feet as Andy Gallagher and one of the two unknown rogues pelted toward him, but Benny and Jo were already there to intercept them. Dean scanned the room and found Rachel holding her own against the other nameless rogue. Jake Talley was still laid out motionless on the floor. Where was Andy’s brother, Ansem?

Dean caught a glint of gold in the darkness at the back of the stage. It was his only warning before a darker shadow detached itself from the rest and came rushing toward him. The wolf moved with incredible speed, but Dean stood his ground and fired his gun. Ansem Weems’ wolf fell dead right on top of him, knocking Dean to the ground. 

“ _Oof_ ,” Dean grunted, grimacing as the body transformed back into human form, smearing him with blood from the bullet hole in the center of its chest . He rolled the dead man off him, sat up, and looked around. Sam was just turning to face him. Andy lay on the floor, his head twisted at an angle that indicated Benny had simply snapped his neck. Dean heard Rachel cry out.

“Rachel!” Jo threw her whole body into a punch that sent her opponent reeling back. Abandoning him, she ran to her mate. 

Dean felt an acute moment of déjà vu as a thread of melody reached his ears. Benny was whistling as he squared off against the rogue who’d been fighting Jo. 

“Dean!” Sam started toward him.

Dean scrambled to his feet. “Sam!” A grin, a quick once-over to make sure his not-brother would be okay, and then Dean scanned the floor, looking for the gun he’d dropped when he’d fallen under the weight of the dead werewolf. That’s when he saw the empty space, a slightly less dusty patch of floor where Jake had been lying. “Sam! Watch--”

The rogue alpha was crawling forward on hands and knees, his body shifting into wolf form as he moved. Ava’s transformation had been fast, but Talley’s was even faster, his human features seeming to melt away, clothes shredding as his wolf emerged. The wolf was fully formed and bounding across the gym at Sam before Dean could finish his warning.

Sam had just started to turn in Talley’s direction. The massive, midnight-black wolf plowed into his hip, knocking him off balance. Sam toppled, the creature’s jaws snapping, fangs tearing into him. 

Dean broke into a run. Pure instinct had him drawing a knife as he sprinted to help Sam, every muscle straining for more speed. He was only a few yards away, dammit, but Dean knew with a sick, sinking feeling that he’d never make it in time. Details seared themselves into his brain: the hot, crimson flood of Sam’s blood, the white shards of exposed bone, the gold of Sam’s eyes dimming as his consciousness faded. Dean’s legs churned in a futile, nightmare effort to reach his mate.

A deep growl sifted more plaster dust from the decaying walls and something whooshed past Dean with the force and speed of a runaway freight train. He grimaced as viscous strands of something wet struck his cheek, and the same part of his brain that was filing away vivid imagery to fuel future nightmares wondered, _shapeshifter?_

_Benny!_ Still running through his endless, slow-motion hell, Dean couldn’t spare a breath to shout his name aloud, but he recognized Benny’s wolf as it closed in on the monster that was Jake Talley with a snarl like a roll of thunder. Benny’s jaws snapped closed on Jake’s throat. He shook the rogue like a dog’s stuffed squeaky toy and hurled him away from Sam.

Dean tore himself free from his hellish personal time warp and dropped to his knees at Sam’s side. He heard Jake Talley’s whimpers of pain cut off abruptly, the metallic screech of a door being torn off its hinges, and Jo yelling his name, but none of it made any sense. None of it had any meaning. The only thing Dean could see was Sam. His mate was the only thing that mattered. “Sam! Sam, you’re going to be okay, all right?" Dean babbled, desperate. "Come on, I’ve got you, Sammy. You’re going to be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If parts of the fight scene seemed familiar, that would be because I copied many of the moves in the fight between Sam Winchester and Jake Talley in the SPN episode 'All Hell Breaks Loose Part 1'. I just wanted that deja vu aspect to be happening. No copyright infringement intended. All credit for those bits goes to the writers, director, stunt choreographers, and of course, the actors of SPN.


	10. Allies

“Dean!”

“I’ve got you, Sammy. You’re going to be okay.” Dean clutched a double handful of Sam’s shirt front, giving him a rough shake. Sam’s eyes focused on him for a moment, then fluttered closed. “No! Sam! You stay with me now,” he yelled.

“Dean! _Dean!_ ” Jo grabbed him from behind, yanking him away from Sam. 

Dean elbowed her hard in the ribs and shrugged her hands off without conscious thought, so intent on his dying not-brother he barely registered her presence. “Sam! _Sam!_ Don’t you dare leave me--” Jo’s fist crashed into his temple. Dean saw stars. The world spun like a carnival teacup ride.

“Stop shaking him! You’re just going to make it worse.”

Dean blinked up at the blonde, struggling to make sense of her words through panic and a rising tide of unbearable grief. “Worse?” Dean’s hands clenched into fists. Pure rage pushed all other emotions to the background. How could anything he did possibly make it worse? Jake Talley had killed Sam--again--and this cold, heartless bitch with Jo Harvelle’s face was wasting the last precious seconds they had. “You _bitch_ \--” He swung, a clumsy haymaker that Jo blocked easily.

“He’ll be _fine!_ ” Grabbing Dean’s jacket, she punctuated each word with a bone-rattling shake, lifting him off the floor and slamming him back down with a force that had more stars reeling in front of his eyes “Dean, Sam is a werewolf, remember? He’s going to be fine.” Jo let him go as she saw the madness leave his eyes, comprehension dawning. “Just stop jostling him, okay? I’m pretty sure his back is broken.”

Dean crawled back over to his not-brother, gently and oh-so-carefully pushing Sam’s hair back from his forehead. He was shaking all over with reaction and relief, tears falling unnoticed, leaving tracks through the blood on Sam’s face. The big alpha was unconscious, but the slight, slow rise and fall of his chest proved he was alive. Jo’s reminder--that this world’s Sam had the ability to recover from injuries that would kill a normal human--sank in, and Dean spared a glance for the rest of the pack.

Jo had gone back to Rachel, kneeling beside her in a position that mirrored Dean’s own next to Sam, her fingers tenderly threading through the wild curls that framed her mate’s face. The petite omega was sprawled bonelessly, clearly unconscious. Dean’s chest tightened, his heartbeat that had just started to slow resuming its triphammer pace. “Jo? You okay? Is Rache-- Is she--?”

“She’s a werewolf, too, newbie.” Jo’s voice was higher pitched than normal, the humor in her tone tinged with hysteria. 

Dean stood up, mentally cramming his emotions down into a manageable, ignore-able knot to be untangled later, and went to crouch down next to Jo. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We’re all gonna be okay.” 

Where the hell was Benny? Instinctively, Dean looked to him to take control of the situation, to direct the next steps. Scanning the room, he saw what was left of Benny’s clothes in a pile on the floor, jacket and jeans and shirt shredded to rags. One boot stood upright, the other lay on its side about a foot away, as if he’d simply stepped out of them as he transformed into his wolf. Dean’s nose wrinkled in disgust: covering everything was a slimy pile of… “Well, that’s disgusting,” Dean commented in an undertone, baffled and disturbed. If this was his own world, he’d have been willing to bet his Baby herself that the gross, gooey substance was shapeshifter residue. But werewolves didn’t leave any residue behind when they transformed...Or did they? Dean's experience so far was limited to his own pack. Maybe rogues were different.

Hunter instincts took over. Dean patted Jo’s shoulder, took a long pause to check on Sam, then walked over to where Jake Talley’s clothing was spread out over the space of about ten feet. Ava Wilson’s clothes were discarded in a similar pattern, obviously torn off as the rogues had transformed into their wolves. But no shifter goo. 

Talley himself could have been mistaken for a pile of trash on the floor, if Dean had still had normal, human vision. The leader of the Dark Moon Brotherhood had been torn in half, tossed aside and discarded like a broken doll. The carnage was some of the worst Dean had ever seen, but he moved on after a brief glance, numb to it. Talley got no sympathy from Dean, not in this or any universe.  


The pair of doors to the left of the stage gave a clue as to where Benny had gone. They tilted drunkenly, torn off their hinges. “Benny? _Benny_ ,” Dean yelled into the night.

Instead of Benny’s deep, Cajun-accented baritone, a teenager’s voice called out, “Oh! This door’s open!” Moments later, the owner of the voice eased through the opening left by Benny’s exit, holding up a cell phone for light. 

Dean squinted. The stranger was older than he’d thought from the sound of his voice. Mid-twenties, maybe, but with a face so boyish Dean couldn’t think of him as fully adult. “What the hell? Who are you?” he demanded. Everything from the kid’s neatly pressed dark denim jeans and crisp button up shirt to his bright blue eyes was totally out of place in the gruesome aftermath of the Detroit showdown.

“Oh, I’m Matt. Matt Pike.”

“Who?” 

“Matt Pike, sir. I’m… I’m an ally,” the kid offered, his face going warm as he said it. 

“A what?” Dean’s confusion, not to mention the weight of panic, rage, grief, and horror, all the squashed-down emotions of the past half hour, made him surly. 

“An ally, sir. I’m with the A.W.R. That would be the Alliance for Werewolf Rights,” he clarified hastily. “Sam Winchester sent me,” Matt said with pride.

A flashlight beam cut through the darkness of the stage, drawing Dean’s attention away from the enigma of Matt Pike. 

“ _Bobby!_ ” Jo burst into motion, running for the stage. 

“Bobby? How’d you get here?” Dean felt a rush of gratitude and relief at the sight of the herbalist, but the situation was becoming more surreal by the second. 

“Jo called, as soon as you found Sam. _Oof._ Been drivin’ all day,” Bobby concluded over Jo’s shoulder as she threw herself into his embrace. “And these are some of Sam’s werewolf rights people,” he added as others began crowding onto the stage behind him, or squeezing through the wreckage of the door Benny’s wolf had fled through.

“Medics, come with me,” Karen Singer spoke up, moving to the front of the odd group of werewolves and humans, “Let’s get our wounded stabilized for transport and get on the road.” 

“The hotel’s about ten blocks away...” Jo sounded as confused as Dean.

“Oh, no, miss. I’ve arranged for accommodations,” Matt said.

Jo looked the kid over, her expression unfriendly. “Who the hell are you?”

“Matt Pike, miss. I’m with the Alliance for Werewolf Rights,” he said eagerly.

“The A.W.R,” Dean supplied, less than helpful. The conversation provided a welcome distraction, keeping him from hovering uselessly over Sam as Karen and another werewolf gently placed him on a backboard. Two humans were tending to Rachel in a similar manner. Jo's attention kept shifting to her mate, and Dean didn't need any supernaturally acute senses to know she felt that same pull to run to her, hold her tight and never let her go. 

Jo glared from Matt to Dean and back again. “...Okay The A.W.R. Got it. Pro tip, kid: you call me ‘miss’ again, I’ll tear you a new one. We clear?”

“Oh! Yes, Ms. Harvelle!”

“ _Hmph._ ”


	11. Slumber Party

“At least go take a shower, son, you stink to high heaven. And that’s coming from a man who doesn’t even have a supernatural sniffer.”

“I’m not leaving Sam.” Dean ignored the mug of coffee Bobby tried to press into his hand, his eyes on his not-brother’s face, as if he could will Sam back to consciousness. Sam groaned, his face twisting into a grimace of pain.

Bobby Singer laid a warm, comforting hand on Dean’s shoulder. “He’s gonna be in for a long night,” he murmured. Then his voice hardened, “And you aren’t going to be worth a damn to him if you don’t take care of yourself.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Dean repeated, stubborn.

“You don't have to leave, but please move out of the way for a minute, dear. There’s someone here who can help Sam,” Karen Singer said as she entered. A young woman followed carrying a paramedic kit.

She’d been one of the medics who’d arrived with the rest of the Alliance for Werewolf Rights, Dean recalled. He blinked at her. “Patchouli?”

She blinked back. “Huh?”

“He’s a little out of it.” Bobby tugged on Dean’s arm. “Come on, give ‘em room.”

Dean let Bobby pull him to the foot of the bed. Somehow they’d all wound up at a large house in a wealthy suburb. Dean had barely registered Matt Pike’s lavish ‘accommodations’, his entire focus narrowed to Sam.

Bobby watched with keen interest as the medic inserted a needle into Sam’s arm. “Enchanted silver?” he asked.

“Yep. Silver keeps the puncture from healing and ejecting the needle,” she confirmed.

“Makes sense, but I’ve never heard of anybody managing to sedate a werewolf. Hell, you kids can hardly get a buzz.”

Dean snorted at that. It was true. He’d tried getting drunk once or twice since being bitten, and had to give it up as a loss. Alcohol was essentially a poison, and werewolves were virtually immune. But the strangely familiar-looking woman was shaking her head at Bobby, her expression smug.

“It turns out that you can.”

“At the risk of killing ‘em, maybe!” Bobby expressed his skepticism with a scowl.

Dean growled and would have shoved the medic away from Sam, but Karen held him back. “If you could explain, Sparrow, please,” she said mildly. 

“Whoa, sorry dude." Sparrow’s golden eyes widened. "I’m not going to hurt Sam. He’s a hero! But yeah," she continued, "the I.V. delivers an infusion of _aconitum vulparia_.”

“Aconite? One of the only poisons that can affect werewolves?” Bobby put his arm out, hand pressed flat against Dean’s chest to help hold him back, but if Bobby was willing to listen, so was Dean. He'd come to trust the man as much as his own Bobby Singer, back home.

“Yep, it's a poison if you screw up,” Sparrow grinned, “but at the right dosage, you get effective pain relief. And we’ve had plenty of chances to perfect the dosage, what with all the fights between our side and the Dark Moon Brotherhood,” she added, her expression darkening. “Is it true that Sam killed the leader of the Brotherhood?

“Sam? Uh, yeah, I guess so…” _Benny_ had killed Jake Talley, but right now Sam’s recovery was Dean’s sole priority. “Okay, go ahead and sedate him,” he urged as Sam tossed his head on the pillow and groaned again…

**...**

...Dean sprawled in the armchair pulled up next to the bed where Sam lay, lulled into a doze by his mate’s deep, even breathing. The aconite infusion had clearly worked, letting Sam slip off into a pain free, healing sleep. Once Dean was finally convinced that Sam would really be okay, he’d given in to Bobby’s nagging and left his side long enough to wash off the stink of blood and weird, not-shapeshifter goo. Matt Pike had somehow produced Dean’s duffel bag, so he even had clean clothes on. 

Matt had also produced a bottle of good Scotch, ‘compliments of our gracious host’. Dean was liking the kid more by the hour, whether there really was a rich ally, or if Matt had just found a vacant mansion for them all to squat in. As long as Sam got healed up before they got busted by the local cops, it was all good as far as Dean was concerned. 

“Dean...Sam?” He recognized Rachel’s scent and opened his eyes to see her hesitating at the foot of the bed. 

“Sleeping,” he answered. “He’s going to be all right.”

“Where’s Jo?” Her voice sounded lost, her question plaintive.

“She’s still working the case, reporting to the local authorities, filing the paperwork to claim the bounty. Bobby says it’ll all take time.” Bobby had filled him in on those details over that eighteen-year-old Scotch: Sam would take the credit for hunting down America’s most wanted rogue werewolf. No one was going to admit to Benny’s involvement. Which made sense, Dean thought, remembering Benny’s transformation into wolf form. Few humans, if any, would make a distinction between a reformed rogue like Benny and a cold-blooded murderer like Jake Talley.

Rachel drifted to the side of the bed, reaching out to brush gentle fingers along Sam’s hairline and down the side of his face. Dean watched with a pang of loss so sharp he had to blink away tears. In his own world, Sam had died. Hell, he’d lost Sam, Jo, Bobby...Even the Rachel of his world was dead and gone, though in Dean’s world Rufus Turner’s daughter had been killed years before Dean and Rufus had even met. 

His eyebrows rose as Rachel turned away from the bed and slid into his lap. He was accustomed to the petite omega’s friendly hugs and playful flirtations, but sitting in his lap? That wasn’t their style. Dean flipped on the bedside lamp and watched her pupils react unevenly to the light.

“Head hurts,” Rachel complained, wincing. 

Dean turned the light off. “Your brain’s still pretty rattled there, kiddo.” She didn’t answer, but reached up to trace the line of his jaw, her touch feather-light against his skin. “Rachel? What’s this?” he had to ask. Her intent seemed platonic, her scent as innocent as a child’s, and yet there was an intimacy there that Dean couldn’t help but associate with sex. 

“This? This day...Today,” she frowned.

Dean could feel the slight acceleration of her heartbeat, sense her frustration as she struggled to find the words. “Today was a hell of a day,” he suggested. It was tomorrow by now, he thought in passing, but whatever.

“Yeah. Hurts,” Rachel agreed. 

“And Jo’s not here…” Dean wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry you’re hurting, Rache.”

“No. I mean, yes, I am. But you, too.”

“Nah.” Dean scoffed. “Not a scratch on me.”

“ _No_.” Rachel laid her hand on Dean’s chest, over his heart. “Sam hurts, you hurt too.” 

“I’m fine, Rachel,” he insisted, but she was caressing his face again, and this time, he caught on. She’d seemed so childlike, but her touch was maternal. She hadn't come seeking solace from him because Jo was gone; she'd come to give Dean what comfort and support she could because Sam was out of commission. The realization set off a fresh wave of emotion that had Dean fighting tears again. 

“‘S’okay to cry, Puppy. Better in than out,” Rachel murmured. 

“Better out than in,” Dean corrected gently. He could take her bass-ackwards, concussed advice. After all, Sam was okay. He could keep that tangled ball of pain and loss and fear pushed down, held at bay. But Rachel closed her eyes and curled up, head on his chest, somehow giving him privacy even as she filled his personal space with her scent, her warmth, and the slight weight of her body pressed close. Dean held her and rocked her like a child, taking his own comfort from the repetitive motion, and let his tears fall...

**...**

“...Slumber party. I call dibs on braiding Sam’s hair.” Jo’s chuckle was threadbare, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion, but she smiled down at Rachel, still sound asleep in Dean’s arms, and ruffled her curls gently. 

“Hey, Jo.” The curtained windows were outlined in a faint glow; it was almost dawn. “Nightcap?...Morning-cap?” Dean offered, pointing out the bottle on the bedside table with a tip of his chin. Even if they couldn’t get drunk, hunters still drank. The simple ritual of drinking itself was somehow relaxing.

“I just want a shower,” Jo groaned in response. Her wounds had healed, but her clothes were torn and crusted with dried blood. 

“Through there.” Another tilt of his head, indicating the en suite bathroom. “It’s a steam shower,” Dean urged unnecessarily. Jo was already in motion.

Dean stood up and moved to deposit Rachel on the bed. Sam had shifted from the unnaturally still, straight position the medics had left him in. The sight of his baby-not-brother stretched out looking relaxed and well on the way to being fully healed lifted Dean’s spirits to the point of euphoria. He settled Rachel, then crawled across the wide, plush mattress to lounge on the decadent array of pillows piled up against the headboard. 

“De--” Sam muttered, and moved closer before Dean had even reached for him. 

“I’m right here, Sammy.” He grinned as Sam cuddled close and laid his head in his lap. Right now, all he wanted to do was spoon up against his mate and hold him tight, but Dean resisted the urge, the question of Benny weighing on his mind now that the rest of his pack was accounted for. 

“Grumpy Bear?” Rachel sat bolt upright, golden eyes seemed to focus directly on Dean, but he could tell by her glassy gaze that she was still asleep.

He stifled a laugh, not wanting to wake Sam. “Grumpy Bear’s in the shower,” he guessed, and smirked when Rachel’s eyes drifted closed and she lay back down. It just figured she’d have a private pet name for her mate...Well, it _used to_ be private, Dean thought with an inward, gleeful snicker.

By the time Jo emerged from the bathroom, wearing one of Sam’s t-shirts as a nightgown, Rachel had taken over Dean’s left leg, using his thigh for a pillow. Dean’s right leg had gone numb under Sam’s weight. The big alpha lay with one arm flung protectively around Rachel’s waist. “Help,” Dean pleaded theatrically. 

Jo laughed. “You’ve been dog-piled.” She climbed up on the bed and pulled Rachel into her arms. “I’m done,” she announced. “I had to talk to _reporters_ , can you believe it? I’m not moving until noon.”

“Make yourself at home; everyone else has,” Dean said dryly. “Just, one thing, Jo. Bobby explained about Benny,” he forged ahead over her groan of protest.

“I’m glad he did,” Jo said. “Bobby’s good at explaining.”

“Any thoughts on where he ran off to?”

“The Cajun? If he’s smart he ran for that old truck of his and put Detroit in his rearview mirror, ASAP.”

“...And?” Dean prodded. 

“And what?”

“And, when we leave Detroit, when we collect our bounties and Sam deals with the media and all that, that _Cajun_ is going to join our pack. Or am I missing something?”

Jo sat back up. “Dean. Didn’t Bobby make it clear? Benny is a rogue.”

“He was a rogue. He’s changed. Dammit, Jo! He saved Sam’s life!” Dean’s voice rose and Sam grumbled sleepily.

“ _Shh_. I get that he saved Sam’s life, Dean. That’s why I stayed at that hall and made sure there wasn’t any trace of him having ever been there. That’s why I made sure that Matt kid and the AWR people were all on the same page: Benny Lafitte left the movement when he quarrelled with Sam. He hasn’t been seen since,” Jo said, keeping her voice soft. “I do get it, Dean. We owed it to him to let him escape.”

“We owed him. And now the debt is paid, is that what you’re saying? Benny saves Sam, and in return, we cut him loose? Is that how it works here in your world?” Dean could feel Jo’s muscles tense more with every bitter, whispered word, but he didn’t care.

“It’s your world now, too,” she murmured.

“Well, maybe I don’t want it to be, if that’s how fucked up it is!” 

“Ah, come on, I'm too tired to fight.” 

To Dean’s astonishment, Jo moved in closer and laid her head on his shoulder. Chastened, he put his arm around her, his anger draining away as she snuggled up to his side. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.” And hers had been even longer than his, Dean thought. Instinct kicked in and he rubbed her back, fingers tracing firm circles between her shoulder blades. Jo’s heart beat steady against his ribcage, tight muscles relaxing under his hand.

“Did you see Ava transform?” she asked after several minutes had passed.

“Yeah. Crazy fast,” Dean said.

“And Jake was even faster. Do you know how a rogue develops that speed?”

“Um… Practice?” Dean hazarded, even though he knew it was unlikely.

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Jo snorted. “Dean, they get more powerful every time they kill. Who knows how many Jake Talley murdered? Maybe as many as a hundred innocent humans! Ava Wilson was the lead suspect in dozens of murders.”

Dean remembered the pile of scraps lying on the basketball court floor: Benny’s discarded clothes. And Benny’s discarded human form, Dean thought, dismayed, remembering that thick, viscous slime covering everything.

“I saw that bastard transform,” Jo confirmed. “He didn’t shift so much as his wolf just… Exploded out of him. Like the human part of him was just a layer of paint.” The alpha shuddered. “Dean, I know your world’s Benny was a friend, but here? In our world? He’s got to be the worst mass murderer in the whole history of our kind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter up as soon as I can manage it, by the weekend if not sooner. Thank you to all who've read, left kudos, and commented. I'm so appreciative of your support!


	12. Back on the Road

“Whoa, it’s crazy out there. Can’t we just sneak out the back?”

Less than twenty-four hours after the showdown with the Dark Moon Brotherhood, and there were radio and television news crews lined up on the front lawn. Out on the street, behind three police cruisers, a small cluster of protesters chanted, their cries of ‘ _Werewolves, go home!_ ’ almost completely drowned out by a bigger crowd of human supporters shouting, ‘ _No hate! No fear! Werewolves always welcome here!’_

Sam peeked around the door frame. “Easy for them to say,” he noted dryly. “There’s not a werewolf in the country that could afford this neighborhood.” 

Jo scoffed at a homemade sign: We Love You Sam!! “What about the rest of us? We’re chopped liver?” she joked.

“You’ll all be household names soon enough,” Sam grimaced. Reacting to Dean's unease, he slung an arm around his shoulders. 

“Oh! Be sure to remember, you’re Sam’s brother, who faked his own death,” Matt reminded Dean. 

“That story doesn’t even make sense,” Dean groused. “Why would he--uh, would I--fake my own death, anyway?”

“Well, it’s all over the internet, ever since the media got wind that Sam’s brother wasn’t dead after all,” Matt said. “Some of the theories are actually pretty well thought out.”

“No, they’re not,” Dean argued automatically. Charging into a nest of vampires--or hell, a pack of rogue werewolves--didn’t faze him, but the crowd outside had his hackles up. Human beings were just too damned unpredictable. 

“Would you rather explain how you’re my brother’s double from an alternate universe?” Sam turned Dean to face him, platonic side hug shifting into a decidedly not-brotherly embrace. “...And my mate?” Sam purred in his ear, making his pulse race.

“Oh! Whoa, guys, whoa! No PDA’s!” Matt said. “You’re brothers, remember?”

“Sorry, Matt.” Sam smiled sheepishly as he let Dean go.

“What about Jo and me?” Rachel batted her eyelashes.

Matt blushed bright pink, but he grinned as he told her, “You and Ms. Harvelle can do all the PDA’s you want.” 

Rachel let out a startled shriek as Jo swooped her up in her arms. Recovering, she wrapped an arm around her mate’s shoulders, threading her free hand through Jo’s hair and pulling her head down for a lingering kiss. Matt’s blush deepened as he watched the pair. Dean couldn’t help but chuckle in spite of the menace of the cameras just outside the door. Matt was clearly having second thoughts about his PDA regulations.

Sure enough, “Keep it family friendly, people, please!”

“Okay, okay.” Jo set Rachel back on her feet. “Let’s get this over with.”

Dean followed Matt and the women out the door, but stopped short at the barrage of sensory input: the blazing white and flashing red and blue lights, the shouts of the crowd, the competing scents of a dozen reporters’ perfumes and hair products and colognes. “I can’t do this.” 

Sam grunted as Dean backpedalled into him. “Just smile and wave. I’m right behind you.”

This was all part of the crazy life he’d promised Sam he wanted to share with him, Dean reminded himself, and turned on his most charming smile. Overnight, Sam had gone from domestic terrorist to something of a national hero. The defeat of the Dark Moon Brotherhood was headline news. Dean made his way down the driveway, doing his best to ignore the microphones pushed into his face. Once the reporters realized they weren’t going to get any answers from the mysterious, long-lost 'brother', they focused their attention on Sam. Dean, Rachel, and Jo found themselves shunted to the side.

Which was fine by Dean. He scanned the crowd, paying particular attention to the group of chanting, disgruntled neighbors. Matt had insisted Sam wear a bulletproof vest under his layers of denim and flannel, but Dean could just imagine some asshole protester taking a headshot. He’d had enough of comatose Sammy to last several lifetimes. Beside him, Jo was equally alert. 

Meanwhile, Sam was making a statement to the press. Even distracted by his concerns for Sam’s safety, Dean couldn’t help but feel a warm glow of pride. Sam’s comments were unscripted and sincere. Instead of focusing on Jake Talley’s death, he expressed condolences to the families of the Dark Moon Brotherhood’s victims. Sam spoke of building trust between humans and werewolves, of a future where everyone could live free of fear…

**...**

“...You done good,” Dean said after they’d finally piled into cars and vans and put the suburbs of Detroit behind them. The caravan pulled into a rest stop off the interstate, where Matt Pike had somehow orchestrated a switch that left Jo driving Sam’s ‘69 Mustang while Dean took the wheel of a 1973 Gran Torino. A few miles on down the road, Bobby and Karen, Jo and Rachel, and Matt and the Alliance for Werewolf Rights had all taken different exits, going their separate ways, everyone agreeing that Sam and Dean had earned some time alone together. 

“You and Jo were right, though,” Sam argued. “If I’d gone up against Jake on my own, like I’d planned, I’d be dead.” 

“Well, you’re not,” Dean said firmly. “And now you’re a hero to humans _and_ werewolves. Take the win, Sammy.” With a grin, he turned on the radio, cranking up the volume to discourage any further argument from his stubborn not-brother.

The miles rolled by, the old Torino handling like a dream. Clear skies, smooth asphalt, classic rock on the radio, Sam holding Dean’s hand in his, not because they had to, but just because he wanted to… It was a damn near perfect day. Then Dean’s cell phone rang. “It’s Benny,” he announced, his stomach suddenly churning with a strange mixture of relief and dread.

“You’re not going to answer, are you?”

“He saved your life, Sam! Yeah, I’m going to answer!” Dean pulled over to the side of the road as he slid his thumb across the screen of the phone. “Benny?”

“Dean?” Benny’s familiar deep baritone came on the line as the car rolled to a stop.

“Benny! Are you okay?”

“Sure, I’m fine,” the Cajun said casually. 

Relief. Dean suppressed a snort, thinking Benny’s reply would be the same even if he was on the brink of death. 

“How’s Sam? That bastard was tearin’ into him before I could get to him--”

“Sam’s fine, thanks to you,” he assured him. Dean looked at Sam challengingly, even as the bitter scent of his mate’s emotions hit his nostrils, all raw anger and hurt and betrayal. Dread. He’d been around this block before, with his own world’s Vampire Benny and brother Sam. “He’s right here. Probably ought to tell you thank you for saving his life,” he said pointedly, directing the words at Sam with arched eyebrows. 

“I thanked him already--” Sam opened the car door and exited all in one fast, smooth motion. “--by not putting out the word to hunt him down,” he called back over his shoulder as the door slammed behind him.

“Son of a bitch, Sammy--”

“I’m sorry, Dean. I shouldn’t have called. Jus’ wanted to hear whether Sam pulled through.”

“No, Benny, it’s fine,” Dean said. “It’s just going to take a little time for the rest of the pack to come around.” 

“Nah, there ain’t no comin’ around,” Benny chuckled, but Dean knew the Cajun’s scent would give away the loneliness and sorrow his voice was hiding. “I’m a rogue, Dean: evil. Jo an’ lil’ Rachel knew what they was talkin’ about.”

“I don’t know what you did in your past, Benny, and I don’t care. I know who you are now. Believe me, I know evil, and you ain’t it,” Dean insisted. 

“You know evil like them black-eyed demons of yours, _cher_ ,” Benny said. “No offense, but you don’t know jack ‘bout my kinda evil. You best be listenin’ to your alpha and your mate on this one.”

Dean watched Sam’s tall form growing progressively smaller as he stalked away. Even at the distance his long strides had covered, the set of his shoulders telegraphed his anger. Another few seconds and he’d be out of sight, hidden by a bend in the road. Dean’s stomach churned. His heart ached. “Then why even call?” he demanded. “You’ve got cell phone coverage, so you’re not so far back in the bayou that you missed Sam being all over the news the past twenty-four hours.” 

“Yeah, you got me. Jus’ wanted to hear a friendly voice, I guess,” Benny admitted. 

“Benny. We’ll always be friends, you got that? No matter what.” 

“I oughtta be tellin’ you no, Dean, but I cain’t lie, it does my heart good to hear you say that.” Benny’s voice was gruff.

“I mean it,” Dean said. “If you need anything, hell, even if you just need to talk, you call me.”

“I’ll call you, _cher_. And if you or Sam ever need anythin’, anythin’ at all, you call me. You got yourself your own personal hell hound, yeah.”

“Will do. You take care of yourself, Benny.” 

“You, too. An’ take care of Sam.” The line went dead.

Dean sat for a minute, replaying the conversation, mulling over what Benny had said about ‘his kind of evil’. Sam could walk for a mile or two, he thought dryly. Maybe he’d burn off some of his anger. Dean reminded himself that this world was his second chance...With Sam, and now, with Benny, too. He put the car in gear and pulled back out onto the two-lane road.

Sam loomed up ahead, the setting sun sending his shadow stretching far out behind him. Dean drove past him. He parked the Torino on the shoulder and walked back to meet his mate. “Benny was asking about you--”

“I’m not talking about Benny,” Sam growled. He moved as if to brush past Dean and keep walking.

Dean stepped into his path, blocking him. “We are talking about Benny. He wanted to make sure you were okay. The last thing he said to me was, ‘take care of Sam’.”

“Of course, Dean, because he knows just what to say to manipulate you.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. Come on, Sam, use that giant brain of yours. Benny never did anything to make you hate him like this.”

Sam barked out a humorless laugh. “He never did anything, except turn rogue.”

“Which he did to save your life! Okay, I get it, he must have gone rogue for a while, back in the day, but then he quit! I’d think you could relate,” Dean said. “You’ve fucked up a time or two. Would you want to be judged forever? Sam Winchester, the addict? Sam Winchester, Jake Talley’s little bitch? That seem fair to you?”

“Shut up,” Sam snapped, and Dean knew he’d struck a nerve. “Use _your_ brain.” Sam drew in a deep breath and went on in a calmer tone. “Benny Lafitte isn’t an addict. He didn’t fall in love with the wrong guy. He murdered people, Dean! Lots of people. A werewolf crosses that line, even once, they can’t come back!”

“Okay,” Dean said simply.

“Okay? You’re giving in?” Sam’s scowl softened into a frown of confusion. 

“Okay, Benny’s irredeemably evil,” Dean said. “Okay, I get it. I won’t argue. You don’t have to keep telling me.”

“So you’re not going to have any more contact with him.” 

Dean could feel his mate’s anger drain away, that acrid tang to his scent dissipating. The urge to agree was strong. Just go along, agree with Sam, and keep his relationship with Benny a secret. Sam would be happy. Benny would understand. Dean shook his head. No. Not going down that same road again. “He’s my friend. I’m gonna be there for him.”

“Dammit, Dean! You can’t do this!”

Dean almost couldn’t stop himself from flinching. It wasn’t just the fury in Sam’s voice. His scent was like a slap to the face, that sense of betrayal rushing back, and now it was all focused on him. He squared his shoulders, armoring himself with belligerence. “Is that an order, _alpha_?”

“Remember when you tracked me down, and I tried to tell you this wasn’t just about us any more? Werewolves all over the country are depending on me. On us, now! The whole pack is in it now, Dean, and it’s not just about hunting anymore. It’s about headlines and speeches, public opinion. My ‘brother’ can’t be best buddies with a mass murderer,” Sam shouted.

“So I’ll make sure nobody knows. I’m not stupid. I’ll be discreet.” 

“I can’t take that risk. The movement can’t take that risk.” Sam’s eyes were shiny with unshed tears, his scent brimming with mingled hurt and frustration.

Dean was caught between dual impulses; the desire to wrap his not-brother up in a tight embrace, and the equal but opposite urge to shake him until his teeth rattled. Dean compromised by grabbing the front of Sam’s jacket and tugging him close. “Don’t do this to me,” he pleaded. “Don’t make me choose between you.” 

Sam sniffled, holding his tears at bay by sheer force of will. He brought his hands up and gripped Dean’s wrists, baring fangs in a silent snarl. 

Steeling himself against anticipated pain, Dean thought with a flash of insight. The classic Winchester self-defense tactic: attack.

Sure enough, “Is that a threat?” Sam growled, his grip on Dean’s wrists tight enough to raise bruises.

“No, Sammy. Never. Don’t you know I’ll always choose you?” Dean pulled Sam in even closer, tilting his head to lay his cheek against Sam’s. He could feel the tightness of Sam’s jaw, the rasp of Sam’s stubble as he whispered fiercely, “Whatever world I’m in, whoever I have to lose, no matter how many times I have to lose them, I will always choose you.”

Sam let go of Dean’s wrists and wrapped his arms around him, clinging tight. Dean’s cheek was abruptly wet with Sam’s tears. “I don’t want to lose you,” he said roughly, his voice cracking.

“Never.” Dean hugged Sam back, hard. “Never going to lose me. But I don’t want to lose Benny, either,” he made himself go on. “Not again.”

Sam sniffled again. “Okay. You can call him.”

“And if he needs more than just to talk? If I need to go to him?” Dean pressed.

Sam hesitated. Then he said, “We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Fair enough.” Dean turned his head to kiss Sam, tasting the salt of his tears on his lips. 

Sam kissed him back, slow and sweet and very, very thorough. When they finally paused for breath, he chuckled. “Poor Matt would have a heart attack. Incestuous PDA's.”

“I’ll show you an incestuous PDA,” Dean leered. “Come on, let’s get back on the road.”

“Give me the keys. I’ll drive for a while.”

“No way,” Dean scoffed.

“You treat me like I’m twelve,” Sam said, punching his shoulder. “Why do you always insist on driving?”

“Because I’m the big brother, that’s why,” Dean told him, smug.

“I’m the alpha.” There was just the faintest hint of a whine in Sam's voice, an echo of an annoying twelve-year-old little brother. “Dean! Let me drive!”

“No way, Sammy.”

“Jerk.” Sam grinned as he slid into the passenger seat. 

Dean grinned back. Clear skies, smooth asphalt, classic rock on the radio, they rode off into the sunset... Hand in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, finished! For now... Thanks for sticking with me to the end. I have more adventures planned for our boys, so please stay tuned.


End file.
